


Displaced

by greenwaterdragon



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Blood and Injury, Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Caring Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Humanity (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Outer Space (Good Omens), Domestic Bliss, Established Relationship, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Historical References, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Metaphysical nonsense, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, POV Original Character, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Rating May Change, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2021-04-17
Packaged: 2021-04-25 17:40:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22323952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenwaterdragon/pseuds/greenwaterdragon
Summary: When her boyfriend disappears without a trace, Abigail turns to the only person she can think of who might be able to help.Said person happens to be a bookshop owner in Soho, who did not foresee this string of events, connecting past and present.Our favourite angel and demon try their best to retrieve a young man displaced in time and space.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37





	1. An Unexpected Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> Hello World!
> 
> The result of this weekend's writing session...
> 
> This is a follow-up on my previous GO story 'An Attempted Robbery', so you might want to check that out before :)
> 
> As for this piece here, I have a plan, but said plans may change if considered necessary. Therefore, not entirely sure where this will lead to, to be honest.  
Let me know in the comments what you think so far!
> 
> Greetings and best wishes

It was a quiet evening. Abigail wandered through the antiquity store, rearranging objects here and there as she passed by the rows of shelves. She enjoyed working here, surrounded by all these funny old items. Old wooden cabinets with white lacquer coming of in splinters. Lampshades with vintage patterns found nowhere else today. Paintings and photographs, not of particular artistic value, and yet unique. Small porcelain figurines with dresses made from delicate fabric, carefully sewn long ago by skilled hands. Jewelry, gone out of fashion and stunning nonetheless. Clocks with ornate hands and golden pendulums that needed to be wound every day in order to keep ticking. Kitchen utensils that most people would not even know how to use anymore.

Many of the articles offered here could no longer fulfill their original purpose. They were to fragile or too unhandy for any buyer to actually consider using them the way they had been used in former times. So more or less everything in her had turned into an decorative item of sort, even if it had not been intended to. That did not matter of course, as it was not the point of buying or selling them in the first place.

These objects were offered for sale because they had stories to tell. They had been there as their owner’s lives took yet another dramatic turn. They had watched, silently, as times and lifestyles and attitudes changed. They had been handed on, from person to person, and they had survived until they had somehow found their ways here, into this odd yet lovely small shop in the heart of London. And one day, when the right person happened to enter this shop and lay their eyes upon them, they would again take part in human history, watching patiently.

Abigail sighed as she let her thoughts wander through the funny chain of events that had lead to her getting to work in this wondrous place. Several months ago her then-boyfriend, now-fiancé had lost his job. He had been so desperate and out of his right mind that Abigail had really feared he might do something stupid.

That day, she had been so distracted while working in the dreary café that she had still called her daily hell back then, that she had almost poured hot coffee over a customer’s lap. Luckily for her, the coffee had curiously evaded the man, landing on the floor instead of on him. Moreover, the customer had not been angry – a bit grumpy, maybe, but who could blame him – and even offered her to sit down with him to have a little chat about whatever was on her mind. She had thanked him and responded that she could not do that, as she had other customers to attend to. For some inexplicable reason all the other people in that café had decided to leave just as she had returned to the counter, and all of them had tipped her generously. With nothing else to do, she had sat down on the table with the man, the two of them being the only people in the room. She had felt awkward at first, sitting there in the otherwise empty café with that man probably at least twice her age, watching her intently through the sunglasses that he had not taken off although the light in the place was rather dim. However, she had not felt intimidated or threatened by him, though that took her a while to figure out.

After hesitating for a bit, she had opened up to him and told her about her situation. About her boyfriend and how sad and desperate he was, about how he had shouted at her and stormed out, about how she worried and wondered what she should do. And the man had given her the advise to give him one, and he stressed that – _one_ more chance. “Let him make up his mind and come back to you”, he had sad, leaning back even more in his chair (although that seemed hardly possible, slouching as he already was), “People get all kinds of bad ideas when they feel put in a corner, when find they have no options. Thing is, there always are options. Maybe he does not see the options and gets off track. Then you definitely are better off without him, and you should get rid of him as fast as possible. Bad influence, you see. Best not to let him back into your apartment, then. But if you still care for him and if you _truly_ believe there is hope, give him a choice. Life’s always about choice, trust me on that. Tell him to come back to meet you, at whatever place you like, but _only_ if he can say of himself that he is still the person you fell for when you got to know each other.”

Abigail had not seen the man again, but she had followed his advise. Right after getting of work, she had texted Liam and told him she wanted to meet him, but only if he had not done anything criminal and also did not plan to in the future.

She had gone to the bridge where they had met all those years ago, and Liam had come.

It all had gotten better since then. Liam had found a job as a secretary in a small start-up, and although he did not earn a fortune, he was overall happy and balanced. Then, a few weeks later, Abigail had passed by this antiquity store and saw the offer in the window: “Looking for full-time employee. Sale, small repairs, cleaning. Requires skilled hands, patience and customer-friendliness.”

She had always wanted to work in a place like this, with a certain flair of magic to it – but she had no training whatsoever on how to handle old, fragile objects, so why would the shop owner ever want to hire her?

She had told Liam about it on that evening, and he had looked at her hesitatingly for a while before telling her that there was someone he would introduce her to. He had been quite secretive about it for the rest of the evening, to the point of acting a bit awkward even, but the next day he had taken her to Soho and introduced her to Mr. Fell, the owner of a book shop that looked very much like an antiquity store as well. Abigail had still no clue as to how Liam had gotten to know the middle-aged man, but neither of them had addressed the issue. Instead, Liam had explained to the man that Abigail wanted to work in an antiquity store, and since his store was something of the kind, maybe he knew the respective shop owner and could lay in a good word for her?

Mr. Fell had beamed at her and kindheartedly agreed to give the shop owner a call and persuade her to hire the young woman, as he said he could see that she was the kind of person who would value being surrounded by items that had a history of their own and would certainly treat them well. He said he could tell that from the way she admiringly looked at the row of beautiful old books sitting in the shelf just behind his desk. (Not that they were for sale, he added in a lower voice, as if to be on the safe side.)

The week after, she had started working here, in this oddly lovable antiquity store, and she had enjoyed coming here every single day since then. The shop owner, Mrs. Grey, was a nice old lady who patiently showed her how to correctly handle, pack and, if necessary, mend and patch up the sometimes fragile items. Most of the customers had been quite pleasant people, so far. And the salary was better than it had been in the café, too. If they kept saving money, maybe they would be able to attend evening college in a few years, if they wanted to.

All was going well now, Abigail realized with yet another happy sigh.

The shop owner had already headed home, leaving Abigail to tidy up and then lock up after her when she too, started into her weekend. The old lady had warmed up to her and trusted her quickly, partly because her “peculiar, yet dear colleague”, as she called Mr. Fell, had promised that she would be a good choice of an employee, partly because she had simply gotten quite fond of the young woman herself.

Abigail stopped as she passed by a shelf with a glass cabinet, displaying a row of necklaces, collars and rings not worn for decades. Most of them were not valuable in a monetary sense, but they were special in their own way nonetheless. There was one item in particular that Abigail admired very much, a necklace with a golden amulet, an elaborate, intricate pattern of fine lines stretching over its outside cover. The necklace had been in the shop since the day Abigail had started, yet no customer had ever touched it, nor had she ever opened it. Instead, she liked to fantasize about what might be or might have been inside. The photograph of a lover? A small mirror? A piece of paper leading to a hidden treasure? It invited her to dream, even more than most other objects inside the antiquity store, and Abigail liked that.

She kept looking at the amulet through the glass as she heard the clinking sound of the wind chime hanging next to the entrance door, indicating someone had entered the shop. Without turning around, she knew who it was.

“Dreaming again?”, Liam asked as he approached her from behind and then bent forward to place a gentle kiss on her cheek. He had come to pick her up and walk home together.

“Always”, she answered, sounding happy, “this place is full of dreams, you know.”

“I know. That’s why you fit in here so well.”

She turned around and smiled at him brightly.

“You could open it and have a look at what’s inside, you know. It’s just the two of us. Your boss will not notice.”

“Oh, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind”, Abigail answered, “but I kind of like not knowing what is inside.”

“Hmm”, Liam hummed and tilted his head, pondering, “what about if I open it, but don’t tell you? Then I would hold the secret too, and you would look at me just as admiringly as you look at the thing.”

Abigail burst into laughter and then kissed him. “Not admiringly enough for you?”

“There is always room for improvement, you know?”, he teased, then stretched out his hand to open the cabinet door and retrieve the amulet from inside.

“Careful”, Abigail warned him, in a friendly tone, though she suddenly found herself getting a bit nervous.

“Don’t worry, I won’t break it”, he reassured her, presenting her with the most sincere and adoring smile she could imagine, and all her worries were gone. “I’ll just have a quick peak...”

He turned the amulet so she wouldn’t be able to see inside and carefully, very carefully, opened up its lid.

And then he was gone.

*******

“And I tell you again”, Crowley proclaimed, raising a hand above his head, making a vague gesture as if that would help him to emphasize his point, “they will make it at some point! I mean, look at what they’ve achieved so far, puzzling and piecing together this world’s inner mechanics bit by bit. Sure, they got off track every now and then, losing themselves in some stupid debate on whether the Earth is round or not, going so far as to burn people alive or put them under house arrest and so forth, but after all that they’ve come so far… Colonizing other planets is just gonna be a logical next step.”

He leaned back, taking a sip from the glass of red wine he was holding. “They’ve discovered atoms – okay, that one took a bit longer than I hoped –, they’ve harnessed all kinds of energy sources – well, there are some they really ought to refrain from using, but they will get reasonable eventually –, they’ve sent people up the moon – that was quite fun to watch close up, ya know? – and, oh...” Again a hand-waving gesture.

He noticed Aziraphale’s mild glance.

“Am I rambling?”, Crowley asked, still slurring, but his tone much quieter than before.

“Yes, you are, my darling”, the angel answered, voice soft as ever, and flipped over a page in the book placed on a cushion over his lap.

Crowley tilted his head, looking at nothing in particular, as he tried to order his thoughts. “Just think of that scientist-guy last century, the one who discovered general relativity. About how matter distorts time. What was his name again?”

Aziraphale giggled. “What was his name? Seriously? Should you even talk about this when you’re so drunk?”

But the demon was getting all excited from anew. “Oh, shut up! I mean, it’s amazing how one human being can help their whole race making such a huge leap forward, isn’t it? Still got lots of part wrong, of course, but that was a milestone, and they only figured out how important all that is over the course of decades. Or is it gonna be a century soon… ? Hard to keep track. Doesn’t matter. There are so many other things they are in the process of figuring out! Naturally, all their current theories on planets and stars and so on are wrong, and this weird concept of ‘dark matter’ they’ve come up with to explain some phenomena they can’t explain otherwise, it’s just hilarious…”

“You’re rambling again.”

“Yeah, sorry. Anyway, my point is, they will figure out the technicalities at some point, and they will discover new worlds and get to know them and learn how to live there. And you know what’s the best part? We can be here and watch them, accompany them on their journeys through space and time and...”

“Time?”, Aziraphale asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Time can be manipulated just like any other dimension, you know that.”

“_You_ can slow down time and stop it, with some effort, but you are not from this world”, Aziraphale reminded him with gentle forbearance.

“Well, it would be kind of awkward in our case anyway, so cross that from the list”, Crowley snapped, growing miserable at being reprimanded like a stubborn child.

Aziraphale flipped over another page.

Suddenly, somebody banged on the door from outside.

The angel looked up from his book, eyes slightly widened in surprise. “I am quite sure I put the ‘Closed’ sign.”

“Just ignore it, like you ignore me”, Crowley mumbled, sulking and taking yet another sip.

Again the banging sound as somebody hammered against the entrance quite insistently. There was some shouting, a female voice.

Aziraphale sat up straight. “Is that…?”

Despite the demon’s protesting, he got up and hurried towards the entrance.

*******

Not knowing what else to do, Abigail had run to the first place she could think of.

She did not really know what she expected, coming here. But with Mrs. Grey being already out of town, the bookshop owner seemed the next logical person to turn to. Maybe he was familiar with other kinds of antique objects as well, apart from books. It was the best she could come up with, after running around in the antiquity store and screaming Liam’s name for several minutes with no response. There was no trace of him, or the amulet.

When Mr. Fell opened the door after what felt like hours, she was still so breathless from running all the way here that she struggled to get out a few words.

“I am so sorry, I didn’t know where else to… Liam is...” She gasped for air.

“It is quite alright, my dear, please come in. Deep breath”, he attempted to calm her down, then he led her into the bookshop and asked her to sit down by his desk. A white cup filled with steaming chamomile tea was placed in front of her, and Abigail silently wondered if the man had produced it from thin air, but that was none of her concern now. Neither was this weird, yet steady feeling that there was someone or _something_ sinister lurking in the dark back room visible through the door behind the desk, listening carefully to every word she said.

Forcing herself to keep calm, she quickly recounted the events of the last hour. Of how Liam had opened the amulet and disappeared right in front of her.

Aziraphale studied her intently as she told her story, his face still and earnest.

“Oh please, I know it sounds crazy, but you must believe me!” She almost begged, as she felt despair pool inside her.

“I do believe you”, Mr. Fell answered, and she would have been relieved, had he not remained so dead serious.

The heaviness of a moment was interrupted by a disgusting squeezing sound coming from the ominous back room. Abigail stared at Mr. Fell in alarm, but he just rolled his eyes.

The door behind the desk was fully pushed open, and Abigail suffered the second big shock of her day as the man from the café entered.

Only this time he was not wearing sunglasses.

“Abigail, my dear girl”, Mr. Fell said quickly, effectively cutting Abigail off before she could start to scream, “May I introduce you to Anthony J. Crowley, my… my...” He paused, awkwardly.

“Husband”, the other man completed his sentence, failing to hide the nervous tone in his voice behind a false pretense of mischievousness.

Mr. Fell looked at him in blissful wonder.

Now there might be one reason why Abigail had not felt threatened by being all alone with him the first time they had met.

“But… you… how come you two…?”, she stammered, still not decided on how to react to the yellow snake eyes.

“Yeah, I was just as surprised about that as you”, the man said, switching to a dead-serious attitude, “But now let’s focus on getting your boyfriend back, alright?”


	2. Welcome to the World of Witchcraft

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angel, a demon and a human visit an antiquity store to carry out some investigations regarding the strange activities going on there.
> 
> The world of magic and the danger thereof unfolds in front of Abigail. And she certainly dislikes a certain occult being's style of driving. Crowley plays the hero just to walk straight into a trap and Aziraphale does his very best to keep calm.
> 
> Most importantly, Aziraphale has no knowledge on Star Trek whatsoever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took a while, but here it is: The second chapter of Abigail's adventure with our favourite angel & demon couple.
> 
> Footnotes can be found below.
> 
> Let me know in the comments what you think so far - any feedback is highly appreciated :)

“First thing we need to do”, the red-haired man said, “is to get back to that store.”

Abigail continued to stare at him for a moment, before she managed to get a grip on herself.

“I looked literally _everywhere_!”, she protested, “He’s not there anymore, so what would be the point?”

The two men exchanged a glance that Abigail could not quite interpret.

“There may be some clues that are not visible to you”, Mr. Fell stated calmly, “but we might be able to pick them up.”

“What kind of clues?”

Mr. Crowley walked around the desk towards Abigail and extricated a pair of black sunglasses from his jacket’s inner pocket. She felt mesmerized by his gaze. He did not put the sunglasses on yet, but kept them dangling casually on two fingers while studying her face intently, as if he had yet to decide what he could tell her and what not.

“This amulet that you told us about has to be a magical object”, he finally explained, observing her every reaction with his yellow snake-eyes, “What kind of magical object I can’t tell just like that now that it’s gone, but usually these thingies leave traces of residual energy behind that we might be able to detect.”

Abigail forced herself to not look intimidated. “You… speak of these _ thing__ie__s _ as if you have lots of experience with ‘em.”

Mr. Crowley grinned broadly. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”

“Anyway”, Mr. Fell interrupted them, suddenly reappearing from an adjacent room, “we better get a wiggle-on.”

He had a dark bag hanging over his shoulder, filled with something bulky. Books maybe? Abigail had not even noticed that he had briefly wandered off, she had been too focused on the lanky man with whom she had just shared a second chance encounter.

“Will you ever stop saying that?”, Mr. Crowley complained, a bit over-dramatically, and put the pair of sunglasses on his nose, “_Nobody_ talks like that anymore!”

“Well, _I _certainly do”, Mr. Fell rejoined, looking offended.

Abigail noticed that she did not even feel puzzled by that strange conversation anymore. She had seen so much weirder things already on this evening. Her boyfriend disappearing into thin air right in front of her eyes was on top of the list.

“We’ll take my car”, Mr. Crowley said to Abigail, nodding towards the door, “what’s the address?”

***

Abigail had gotten to know quite a few bad drivers over her life, and it had always driven her nuts. She was convinced there were far too many people who had somehow gotten hold of a license, but should actually not be permitted to ever set a foot on a gas pedal. However, sitting on the backseat of Mr. Crowley’s black-as-night Bentley (an original, that much was sure) she experienced a whole new level of street-related recklessness.i

“Uh, I appreciate that you, uh… hurry so much, but I’d _really_ like to get there in one piece, if you don’t mind”, she uttered sheepishly after he had ignored the third red traffic light and barely eluded a chihuahua that had stepped onto the road in front of its owner.

“Don’t you worry”, he said airily. He lifted a hand from the stirring wheel and made an obscure gesture, and suddenly all traffic lights ahead of them had switched to green for some reason. After a while, there was honking coming from confused drivers in the adjoining streets as this sudden conversion disrupted the overall system.

Mr. Fell gave his husband an angry look.

“What?”, Mr. Crowley whispered to him, “little traffic jam doesn’t hurt no-one.”

After that, Abigail resigned herself to staring blankly out of the window.

They arrived at the antiquity store a short time afterwards. Abigail took a deep breath as she got out of the car. The relief did not last, as the harshness of reality dawned back upon her. She was back at the store. By now, night had fallen. It was not the first time that Abigail saw the shop after the sun had set, but before that night, the street lamps’ reflection in the large darkened shop windows had only enhanced the store’s magical beauty in her eyes. Now that Abigail knew there _ was _ magic at work – actual magic, and not a good sort of it, as far as she could see – she found that it reeked of darkness from within. Harboring the traces of whatever it was that had been done to her Liam.

“Guess that’s it”, Mr. Crowley muttered and headed towards the door, but stopped dead a few steps in front of it. He frowned, took his sunglasses off again and looked the shop over. “Can you feel something?”, he asked his husband, tilting his head towards him.

“Not yet. You do?”

“There’s something, yeah, but I can’t quite make it out yet...” He turned towards Abigail. “Keys?”ii

She held out the entrance keys and he took them from her. In the back of her head, Abigail could not help but think that she was betraying her employer’s trust by sharing the keys to the shop with the odd couple, even though Mrs. Grey was acquainted with Mr. Fell. Silently, Abigail hoped that the old lady would understand.

Mr. Crowley headed for the front door, keys stretched out in front of him, but stopped dead about one meter before it.

“Crowley?”, Mr. Fell asked quietly.

“There is… something is bothering me here.”

“Maybe let me go first then.”

“No”, Mr. Crowley cut him off in a protective tone, “let me check this out first.”

Mr. Fell looked wary, but seemed to know that it was pointless to protest.

Mr. Crowley went on to open the entrance door, unlocking the old-fashioned chains one by one, before pushing the door open in one swift motion. Then he took the first step inside.

Only to immediately jump out again with a yelp.

Abigail stared in shock as the man stumbled backwards, hands raised in front of him as if to fight off an invisible attack, face contorted in a mixture of pain and annoyance.

“Son of a… What in the name of _Someone…_ who put this _garbage_ here...”, he complained through gritted teeth, swaying on his feet. Mr. Fell was already by his side, grabbing his shoulders to stabilize him, looking him over in obvious worry.

“What is it?”, he urged, his blue eyes widened. Upon seeing the concern in his husband’s face, Mr. Crowley took a deep breath to steady himself enough to explain his reaction.

“Protection spell, fending off evil”, he said, as if that would explain everything, “Must be some runes close to the door.”

“Will you be alright?”, Mr. Fell asked cautiously, slowly running his hands down the other man’s arms to offer him some comfort.

Mr. Crowley nodded. “No worries, ’s not too strong. Just stung a bit when I stepped right in.” There was still some strain in his voice that indicated that this was an understatement, but at least whatever effect this ominous spell had exerted on him seemed to be waning off as he was able to maintain his balance again.

Mr. Fell was not fully convinced, but for now decided not to press the matter further. Still rubbing soothing circles over his partner’s back with one hand, he turned towards Abigail.

“Do you know if there are any inscriptions somewhere inside the store, perhaps near the front door?”

“Inscriptions?”, she asked, puzzled yet intrigued, “You mean like… strange, illegible letters? A written magic spell?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, there really is something written on the wall just above the entrance door.”

Now it was Mr. Fell’s turn to be puzzled. “I have visited the store before, I do not recall such a thing being in plain sight above the door. _ That _ is something I would have remembered for sure.” He quickly threw an embarrassed side glance towards his husband.

“Because it’s not in plain sight. It is covered by the small painting hanging over the door. I discovered some writing on the wall behind it a while ago when I took it down to clean the dust off the frame. Couldn’t make it out, so I figured it’s an old insignia of the shop or Mrs. Grey’s family, in a fancy old writing style. Never got around to ask her.”

“Ah”, Mr. Fell made, “let’s have a look at that, shall we?”

Abigail and Mr. Fell went inside the shop, while Mr. Crowley stayed outside, watching them wearily through the open door while keeping a few meters distance from the offensive interior.

Mr. Fell stood on his toes and reached up to take off the small painting – a lovely picture of a tree in a forest glade, with intricate branches and leaves –, then handed it to Abigail and inspected the piece of wall previously covered by it.

“It’s Enochian”, he said, almost immediately.

“Of course it is, what else would it be? Now what does it say?”, Mr. Crowley asked from the outside. He was growing more impatient by the second, especially since the weather now showed a change of mind and single raindrops started to fall from the sky. The thick layer of clouds lingering far above them indicated theatricality that there was more to come soon. Had Abigail paid close attention to him at this point, it would have struck her as remarkable that not a single droplet seemed to land on Mr. Crowley’s suit jacket or sunglasses.

“Oh, it is quite polite”, Mr. Fell elaborated calmly upon his request, demonstratively ignoring his partner’s snappy tone, a bit as if talking to a sulking teenager, “it kindly requests all members of your people to stay outside, otherwise they will be struck with ‘appropriate retribution’.”

“How innovative”, his partner grumbled, somehow burying his hands in the pockets of his ultra-tight jeansiii, “would have been even kinder to put that up on the _outside_.”

Mr. Fell hummed in agreement, then produced a pen from his bag and stood on his toes again to add to the writing on the wall.

Abigail watched as he skillfully wrote some additional runes and then drew the symbol of a snake, coiling itself around a vertical shaft. After a moment, she realized that it was the very same symbol which the man waiting outside had tattooed onto his temple.

“You are now officially excluded from the request”, Mr. Fell said, put the painting back in place and took a step back to make room for his husband, “it should be safe for you to enter, dear boy.”

Without hesitation, Mr. Crowley followed his partner’s suggestion. This time, he could cross the door step without doubling over in pain.

“All good?”, Mr. Fell checked.

“Yeah”, the other man answered, shrugging off his partner’s concern.iv

Now that all three of them were inside, they closed the door and turned on the lights.

“Can you show us to the cabinet in which the object has been kept?”, Mr. Fell asked Abigail, who quickly nodded and led them through a corridor of overfilled shelves towards the back of the shop. There, she pointed at a glass cabinet, located between a man-high cuckoo clock and a selection of rolled-up carpets leaning against a wall.

Abigail watched curiously, as Mr. Fell raised his hands to his temples and closed his eyes for several seconds. “Almost impossible to filter out”, he concluded after a few seconds, and Abigail’s heart sank when she heard the resignation, “too many artifacts around here which harbor some form of weak magic. Not to speak of the protective spell. Makes everything blurry.”

“Agreed.” His husband nodded and looked at the young woman. “Can you describe this amulet to us in more detail? What did it look like?”

“Well, it was like this big” - here, she raised one hand and formed a circle with her thumb and index finger - “and it had a hinge at the side, for opening it.”

“A locket”, Mr. Fell remarked, “they became quite popular in the Victorian ages. Sometimes they contained pictures of loved ones, or of the dead.”

“Yes, it was that kind of thing.”

There was silence for a moment, as Abigail remembered something.

“Mrs. Grey once mentioned that it might have been in the store for a very long time, because it has been lying in some cupboard in the backside storage room since who-knows-when. Must have been forgotten there at some point. She said she was not quite sure anymore how it came into the shop’s possession. Not that she actually cared about that – she just kept saying that things like this belong out there, into the world, where people can actually use and see them. That’s why she put it out here for sale. But...”

“But?”

“But nobody ever really showed an interest in it. I always found that quite curious, ‘cause I considered it to be very beautiful. Still, even people who went straight for the jewelry cabinets never paid much attention to this particular medallion.”

“That is valuable information, indeed. Anything more? Even simple things help. Like, what material was it? Or what color did it have?”

“It was golden and… it had lots of thin lines all over it.”

“Lines? Straight lines?”

“Oh, no, not at all. They were all curly, kind of interweaving into each other, as if forming an irregular net covering the whole outside.”

The two men exchanged another one of their ambiguous looks. Suddenly, Abigail understood why.

“Do you think these curly lines could be magical inscriptions, like the ones over the door?”

“It is a possibility, yes”, Mr. Fell confirmed, speaking very softly, “Mrs. Grey inherited this store here from her uncle, and it has been in the family for a few generations. As far as I know, Mrs. Grey herself is not a witch. However, the presence of this inscription indicates that she had at least someone in her ancestry or a close acquaintance thereof who was well-versed in the occult arts.” He paused. “Can you perhaps remember what shape the lines had?”

“Oh...” Abigail thought as hard as she could. She had looked at the medallion dozens of times, had traced the lines with her eyes, and yet… The human brain could well recognize patterns, but spontaneously recalling them without ever having made the conscious effort of memorizing its details was a rare gift. It was one which Abigail did not possess, to her immense regret. “I… I don’t think I remember it clearly enough”, she said, disappointed with herself even though there was no reason to be.

Mr. Crowley made a calming gesture. “No worries, that’s alright. The information is there, in your brain, even if you can’t recall it at will. But if you were to share it with us, we could extract the details we are looking for. We could try to make out the writing on the locket, if there is any, and even if not, it would make it easier for us to identify the traces of its magic here in this jungle. To home in on its tune, so to speak. ”

Abigail stared at him with wide eyes. “That is possible?”

“Yesssssss”, he answered, and strangely enough the last ‘s’ came out as a hiss. Mr. Crowley flinched involuntarily, like someone bothered by a speech impediment they cannot always control, but carried on as if nothing had happened. His partner gave him another worried lookv, which he pointedly ignored, as he continued to speak. “There are techniques which allow us to see what somebody saw, to see their memories.”

“You want to read my mind?”

Here, Mr. Fell took over again. “Not directly”, he explained calmly, “mind-reading is not a standard ability among our people. But what we can do, with your explicit consent and permission, is to establish a temporary mental link. That way, you can share with us your memories of today night’s events. We could get a look at the amulet you mentioned...”

“… as well as your boyfriend’s departure.”, Mr. Crowley completed the sentence.

Abigail was puzzled. “And you can ‘establish a mental link’? You mean, like Spock? Like the Vulcans, when they do their mind-meld thing?”

Now, it was Mr. Fell’s turn to be confused. “What does a volcano have to do with all this, dear girl?”

Mr. Crowley gave a theatrical sigh of resignation. “Gotta explain you that later.”

His husband pouted a bit, but he ignored him and turned back towards Abigail. “Yeah, a bit like a mind-meld, but here, it will only work one wayvi. Also, won’t hurt. The condition is, it only works when you agree to it. You can show us only what you want us to show.”

Abigail swallowed. She thought about what she had just heard for a moment, but did not give herself too much time – otherwise, she might have changed her mind. No, Liam needed her, he _ relied _ on her, so there was no room for hesitation.

“Alright, I agree”, she said and looked straight into Mr. Crowley’s yellow snake eyes. Not for the first time she noticed that he never seemed to blink. “Do whatever is necessary.”

He nodded and straightened his back, then raised his hands until they hovered at both sides of her head, close to her temples, but not touching. He took a deep breath.

“First of all, let your guards down. Imagine how your mind is surrounded by walls, which normally are impenetrable. Now imagine, there is a door at the front, right in your forehead, and you alone have the key.”

“And I… open it for you?”

“That’s the prerequisite here, yeah.”

She did as she was told. It seemed to work, as the man drew an audible breath.

“Good, good. Now, just imagine your memory is a movie that you re-play in your head. Re-wind the tape, and envision everything you saw around the time it happened.”

“But I don’t...”

“Shhh, don’t dwell on the details. Your head will fill them in for me all by itself. Just let the scene play in your mind.”

Abigail closed her eyes and forced herself to relive the moment that had turned her world upside down. How Liam took the medallion in his hand, how he turned so she could not peer inside, how he opened it…

Something flickered in front of her, like a lightning flash, and she felt a tickling sensation creeping over her scalp. It was not painful though, to her relief.

When she opened her eyes again, Mr. Crowley stared at her in a mixture of disbelief and shock.

“What is it? Did it work?”, she asked, wondering if perhaps something had gone wrong.

When he did not answer, Abigail felt the heart in her chest clench together to a cold, hard clump.

“Crowley?”, Mr. Fell inquired quietly, frowning in worry at his partner’s unexpected silence. In the far distance, thunder started to growl. The Earthly heavens were brewing a storm, and it was steadily creeping closer.

“Well, the good news is”, Mr. Crowley finally said, speaking slowly, almost as if in trance, “I know where your boyfriend went.”

_ Footnotes: _

i Not that Crowley had ever possessed an actual driver‘s license. Back when he had first tried steering a motorized vehicle, such a document had not been required yet. Likewise, he had never taken classes. He had somehow figured out how to operate these clever machines and maneuver them around annoying obstacles, such as people. Thereby, he had created his own way of driving, gradually getting accustomed to new laws and regulations as the 20th century progressed and the traffic volume grew. ‘Getting accustomed’ meaning that he became more adept at willing and re-organizing his environment according to his needs. And his most dominant need was to go fast.

ii The demon would not actually have required a key to get in. However, for now he refrained from performing superfluous miracles as that might disrupt or obscure the imprint which the amulet’s magic had left behind. Abigail would only understand that much later. The realization would hit her spontaneously, one sunny morning, while browsing through some occult texts and eating a bowl of cereals.

iii One might speculate on whether or not he consciously or subconsciously created pocket-dimensions in his jeans’ pockets in order to be able to do that.

iv Playing it cool was a habit which Crowley could not quite get rid off, especially not in mixed company. Aziraphale knew how much Crowley hated having to admit to any weakness. Being struck by some low-witted anti-demon spell in front of his angel _and_ a human bothered him, perhaps more than the discomfort itself. Accordingly, Aziraphale let him have it his way. He would have time afterwards to tend to his demon and pamper him, presumably against his will.

v Crowley would hiss on purpose in a number of situations, mostly to scare or intimidate mortals. Sometimes it would happen when he was really drunk or excited, or when he got angry and no longer had enough grip on his human corporation to suppress his intrinsic reptilian characteristics. For the same reason, involuntary hissing could also be a sign or an aftereffect of exhaustion, which was what had Aziraphale worried.

vi A Vulcan-styled two-way exchange would very likely have flooded the young woman’s brain with way more information and emotional input than she could handle, such as six thousand years of secret mutual admiration and denial as well as every single episode of Doctor Who, including some really bad old ones.


	3. At the other end of the Tunnel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was quite a disorienting experience, he would later say. And that might very well have become known as one of the largest understatements in human history, had anyone ever included his tale in an official record.  
Liam awakes alone in an unknown forest and finds communication technology is not the solution to his problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... it has been a while. Still I hope you enjoy - I certainly enjoyed writing! :-D  
When inspiration strikes, you have to make room for it, no matter how tightly packed your schedule is. Maybe giving this piece of advice to other people will help me learn to better follow it myself too ^^
> 
> Again written from the POV of an original character. Disclaimer: I do my research, but I'm not a Historian.
> 
> Let me know what you think in the comments!
> 
> But most importantly:  
Stay safe you all out there!

It was quite a disorienting experience, he would later say. And that might very well have become known as one of the largest understatements in human history, had anyone ever included his tale in an official record.

One moment, he was standing in the cozy antiquity store right next to his beloved one, the next it felt as if he was being squished head-first through a tunnel that should be far too narrow to contain his body – that was, if common physical laws such as interatomic repulsion had still been of relevance at this stage. There was light blinding him through his firmly closed eyelids and a screeching sound that reverberated in his head (or whatever was left of it) until his virtual eardrums felt as if they were about to burst into a million pieces – and then, utter silence.

Silence, as in the silence of nature.

Living in London for several years, he was not used to that anymore. No traffic sound. No opening or closing of doors. No background music. No people rushing by talking on their phones.

Only a gentle noise reminiscent of leaves rustling in the wind...

_Wait, what – leaves? As in leaves on trees?!_

It was then that Liam realized that the blinding white light from before had vanished, and what he now saw was merely the shimmering red tint of blood in his own eyelids, as sunlight hit them from above. He slightly tiled his head and cracked his eyes open, blinking several times in a row as his pupils sluggishly adjusted to the new environment.

Far above him, there were branches covered in fresh, green leaves. Bright sunlight was shining through an opening in the foliage, hitting his face. Liam slowly sat up and took stock of himself and his surroundings.

He still looked and felt pretty normal, noticing no harm on his body other than a mild lingering dizziness, for which he might well be excused after being put through the wringer like that. Further, he seemed to be in the woods. Not that he minded that per se. Coming from a country with one of the lowest forest densities in Europe, that was actually quite refreshing. He would really just like to know _how_ exactly he came to be here in the first place.

Sluggishly, he walked up to a tree and touched its bark, trailing his fingers over the brown and white protective layers. Feeling their roughness helped to ground him, as a series of thoughts flooded his head. _Can this be real? Am I hallucinating or dreaming or even in a coma? __Maybe a book fell down from a top shelf at the antiquity store and hit my head really hard? Maybe Abby was performing CPR on my chest and that’s why I felt like suffocating before?_ He took a deep breath, trying to get a grip on himself and calm the surge of panic that he felt brewing up._ For all I know, I could have sustained brain damage from the loss of oxygen…_ But then again, this here felt so real, so much more real than any dream he had ever experienced. There were so many details. So many details, he could easily drown in them. Grass, flowers, leaves, birds chirping in the distance and… something else, he could not quite place. Hooves, he realized, it was the slurping sound of hooves on muddy ground. And not their rhythmic clicking of asphalt as he was slightly more familiar with. Horses were approaching, a few of them, and if there were horses, there probably had to be people riding on them, right? People who could help him or at the very least tell him where _the __H__ell_ he was?

Only now it occurred to him that he should check his pockets. His phone, of course! Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? Hectically, he started searching, and after a few seconds, pulled his phone out of the pocket of his trousers. He heard the horses getting closer, as he almost frantically worked on his phone – luckily, it seemed quite functional –, unlocking it and checking the time. He frowned in confusion – according to his phone, it was 19:43, not much later than the time he had arrived in the antiquity store to pick up Abby. The bright sunlight, on the other hand, clearly indicated that it was the middle of the day. He squinted to see the small symbols in the upper right corner of the screen, which were hard to make out as the screen cast reflections. No service, he realized. Well, that explained why the time hadn’t updated. Also, it hinted towards a scenario that involved him having actually been transported here right to this time and place, rather than having passed out and slept through an indefinite period. Liam was not quite sure whether or not he should be relieved.

No service, of course, also meant that he was cut off from calling help. Dazed from his realizations, he had almost forgotten about the horses still approaching. And then, they became visible, appearing from behind the trees of the forest. It was a large, robust carriage, skillfully made from metal and wood – nothing like Liam had ever seen it before – and it was being pulled by two dark brown horses. Liam gave a whistle out of admiration, for both the animals as well as the cart, then started waving to gain the attention of the two men sitting on the carriage. As they saw him, the one holding the reigns called the horses to a halt and the cart stopped.

Liam put on his brightest smile and walked towards them as casually as possible. “Hey, Sir, good day! I’m afraid I got a bit lost here, could you maybe help me or tell me where I am?”

The men stared at him, as if not quite sure what to make of this stranger showing up out of nowhere and bothering them. Liam could not blame them. As he got closer, he did, however, notice a few things almost at the same time. For one thing, the two men were wearing very, very odd clothes. Robes, partly from fur, a bit ragged at some spots, but also embroidered in a delicate way. Liam figured they probably were on a way to a costume fair.

And they seemed to be taking their roles quite seriously. Looking at him in a very earnest, hostile way, giving no indication of having understood him. Liam cleared his throat and spoke out again.

“Gentlemen, I know this is a bit weird, but I am in some trouble here. Do you think you could help me out a bit?”

No reaction other than grim starring.

Liam remembered his manners, as a certain someone had advised him to.1 “Please?”

The two men exchanged a glance, then looked back at him. One of them said something.

“Uh… come again, _please_?”

The men looked at him a bit confused, but seemed to have deduced from the stranger’s tone of voice that he should repeat his last sentence with improved clarity, which he did. The second time Liam could at least be sure that the man was not speaking English. Oh Heavens, was this perhaps Gaelic or something? He knew his grandfather had spoken it, but he himself had never learned it. Maybe he should have.

“I am very sorry, I do not understand you. Do you happen to speak English?”

Again an answer in the odd language. Liam sighed in frustration. “Eng – lish?”, he said as loudly and clearly as he could manage, with no result. Only then he thought of his phone again. Of course! A while ago Abby and him had tried to look up for a Gaelic word while filling out some crossword puzzle in a newspaper they had found abandoned on a table in a bar. He had downloaded a translation app for Gaelic then, and since he never bothered to delete apps, it probably was still there and would work offline! Grinning, he quickly opened the application, not noticing the curious and slightly scarred glances of the two men as they saw the shining flat object.

Of course, he didn’t know whether they really spoke Gaelic, but then again, what harm could be in trying? Best to go with simple sentences though, these translation programs would sometimes mess up if sentences got too long or complicated. _I have lost my way. Can you please help me?_, he typed after considering for a bit, then set the volume to full and held the device in the direction of the two men. The computer-generated voice – female and high-pitched – read out the Gaelic translation.

And the two men started to shout in terror.

What happened next would mostly be a blur in Liam’s memory. The men jumping from the carriage, coming towards him. The phone falling from his hands onto the ground and being squashed underneath the hooves of a rearing horse. His head hitting the ground. The amulet that he saw lying in front of him in the grass, and that he then hastily shoved into his pocket. One of the two men standing above him, raising his fist. White noise, then black silence.

***

Liam’s second awakening left him feel more grounded, but was considerable more painful. Curious that a presumably supernatural experience had left him in a better state than an encounter with two scared fellow human beings.

He groaned miserably as he felt the pulsing pain on his head, where he felt a bump reaching over his right eyebrow. Oh, great. That would take a while. Against his better judgment, he opened his eyes and forced himself to sit up, only to find that his hands were tied up by the wrists. He was lying in some form of shed or barn, as he could tell from the smell of hay, wood and… well, excrements. It was dark, only a bit of moonlight shining through cracks in the roof above him. He tried to move, but found his hands were additionally tied to some anchoring in the wall. Brilliant. No way of escaping.

Too tired to be scared, he leaned against the filthy wall and tried to focus on his breathing in an effort to handle the nausea that was befalling him. The men had been terrified by the phone. They had looked at it as if they had never seen one before. And by now, Liam was starting to think that _this was actually the case_. It was a curious thought, and he still had to toss it around in his throbbing head for a bit until it could grow into a certainty.

After a while, he fell asleep again. When he awoke, it was not of his own accord, but by the noise of a barn door being opened and human footsteps approaching. Liam jolted upwards, only to be painfully reminded of his still injured head and sink back against the wall. Stubbornly, he forced his eyes open to welcome his visitors.

The first coming in was one of the two men who had struck him down in the forest. Liam’s jaw tensed as he recognized him, and he decided to call him _Dick_.

Dick was closely followed by another man in colorful robes, old, with lots of wrinkles in his face, long gray hear and an almost equally long gray beard. Oh, that one he had to call _Gandalf_, out of question.

Gandalf came in and then respectfully stepped aside to give room to a third person about to enter the room. The third person was a young woman with brown hair held back by a delicate golden band. The woman stayed a few steps behind the two men, but watched intently with a focused, stern expression on her face. Liam could not quite decide on how to call her yet.

Dick raised an arm, pointed at Liam and said something in their secret language to Gandalf, who answered him. Then Gandalf approached Liam, knelt down in front of him, grabbed his chin with one hand and turned his head to get a better look at his face and possibly, his head wound. Dick said something in the background, but Gandalf cut him off with a sharp remark. Next, Gandalf reached into a bag he had tied to a belt along his waist, and got out some kind of paste. It smelled of leaves and herbs. He applied it to the bump on Liam’s head. As a smeary finger touched Liam’s forehead, he felt a burning sensation, which made him wince and squirm. Gandalf said something to him in a strict voice which Liam of course did not understand, but effectively conveyed the message “Keep still, you idiot”, so Liam bit his teeth together and let the man proceed. When he was done, Gandalf cleaned his fingers with a piece of cloth that he produced from another pocket hidden in his multilayered robes, and then pulled out yet another object.

Liam sighed as he saw his phone, the screen smashed and crumbled. Gandalf held it in front of him, carefully keeping it out of his reach, and said something which probably meant “What kind of sorcery is this, young man?”.

What was Liam about to say to that? Nobody would get it anyway. Maybe speaking in a calm, sincere voice would at least make them understand that he meant them no harm? “Okay, okay, I see this is weird for you, but really, it’s not dangerous”, he said to the man, trying to sound as genuine as he could. Luckily, the man seemed to grasp the message. Gandalf and Dick exchanged another few words, possibly debating on whether they should trust this stranger or kill him as quickly as they could. They still seemed to be undecided, when the young woman interrupted them with a quiet, yet determined voice. Both men fell silent, then got up and all three of them left. Liam soon fell asleep again.

***

When he awoke the next time, sunlight shone through the openings in the shed’s roof. Liam twisted to get into an upright position, which was rather difficult when one’s hands were tied up. He was not alone for long, as the barn’s door opened and Dick entered and gave him an withering glance. _Hey, old pal_, Liam thought and gritted his teeth. It was only now that he actually noticed how small Dick was. He was of a sturdy build, but at least a head shorter than Liam, who had never considered himself to be particularly tall. Nonetheless, the man approached him without any fear, being very sure of his own physical superiority, untied the other end of the rope that was holding Liam’s hands together from a hook in the wall, and firmly pulled on it. “Alright, I’m coming along. No need to be a dick, Dick”, Liam muttered. Dick seemed to understand that Liam had said something disrespectful, gave him another murderous look, then angrily dragged him on his unsteady feet and out of the barn.

Finally outside, Liam could see that he was in a village. The houses were made of clay and wood, with roofs covered by straw. There were fireplaces with large metal cauldrons like Liam knew them from movies about witches. Close to the barn, he saw horses grazing inside a paddock. Chickens roamed the area, occasionally one could hear the crow of a cock. In the distance, Liam could see what he presumed was a blacksmith shop, with recently forged hooves and parts of carriages arranged on stone plates in front of the house, maybe to cool down. And of course, there were people.

Like Dick, most of them were small, with dark hair and skin. Only very few of them had the red hair and fair, pale skin color which Liam had secretly expected to see. Some villagers looked healthy and robust, but most looked worn out and malnourished. They seemed to bear their lot with a kind of stubborn, proud resilience, which could not distract from the fact that the vast majority of them were _young_. Unlike Dick and Gandalf, most people here were Liam’s own age at most.

Groups of children ran around screaming, playing games of catch, and stopped dead to grimly stare at Liam as he was dragged along the way by Dick. _P_r_obably they are told bedtime stories about gruesome, _ _sorcery-casting_ _ invaders every night_, Liam imagined gloomily.

As Liam finally was dragged past the blacksmith shop, he saw two young men, about Liam’s own age, standing next to each other working on some kind of tool. They did not notice Liam passing by at first, and casually exchanged a passionate kiss. Liam felt his eyes widen in surprise at this public display of affection which didn’t seem to bother anyone in the slightest. _I knew history is a white-wash_, he thought to himself, _but I wasn’t aware it’s a hetero-wash _ _too_ . Then the two men saw him and threw him distrustful glances, like their fellow villagers . _Yep, clearly the power of bedtime stories _ _carries _ _on_ _ into adolescence_ _._

In the very center of the village stood the largest house of all. Liam figured it would be the residence of a leader or ruler, and sighed in resignation. So he was about to face another person who would try to talk to him and fail to understand a single word. And would probably be sentenced to death.

Inside, he saw a long table, and the man who had been sitting in the horse cart next to Dick on the evening before sat at its short side at the back end of the room. His position, his proud posture as well as his ordained clothing indicated his rank. _Oh great, _ _so _ _I _ _already_ _ managed to make a good impression on the village leader before the interrogation _ _has even started_, Liam realized and felt a knot in his stomach. His head wound started pounding again too, and he felt as if he might faint. The overall stench of human sweat that lingered in the air did not help against that.

The men in the room started talking to each other, debating on what to do with the stranger who had presumably attempted to launch a magic attack on the village leader.

He was going to die.

The thought resonated in his mind over and over again. There was no way to get out of this, so he might as well make peace with his fate. Think of something good. Think of Abigail. His sweet, sweet Abby. Absentmindedly, he let his glance wander across the room, and only then noticed the young woman standing in the background. Again, she was silent, yet watching the scene with a stern, distanced face. Their eyes met, and locked. He saw no intention of murder in her expression, no accusation. Maybe she was open-minded enough to speak out in his favor? But then again, she did not participate in the discussion. So maybe she was respected in some way, but held no political power?

Liam felt fear and frustration build up in him, and he tried to put all of that into his glance, trying to get the message across that he meant no harm and really, really needed help. She did not break the eye contact and was not intimidated, but also gave no indication of being intent on helping him.

It was no use.

Liam closed his eyes, tilted his head back and conjured up a picture of Abigail.

And then the screaming started.

***

People shouted and screamed in panic, all over the village. Some of the men in the room jumped up and ran outside to see what was going on. Liam saw Dick tense up, as if undecided on whether he should follow them or stay inside to keep watching the captive. He chose the latter, but nervously looked towards the door.

Half an hour passed, then a group of men entered. Many of them were wounded, large scratches and dark, angry bruises marking their skin. Their expressions were grim, some even disgusted. In their midst, they carried yet another prisoner. Liam watched in surprise, as they dragged a figure wearing black-as-night robes in front of the village leader.

The newcomer seemed to be a woman, tall and lean and ghostly pale. Long, red hair fell over her back and shoulders. It was not the fair orange-red color that Liam had seen before in a few people in the village. In another time and place, he would have assumed without a second thought that it had been dyed to this distinct, intense dark-red color. Like Liam’s, her hands were tied up, yet not with ropes but with chains which had some kind of markings or symbols carved onto them. _Runes?_, Liam wondered.

He could not completely see the woman’s face, as she had been blindfolded before being dragged inside. The moment she was brought before the leader, she crumpled down to an exhausted heap on the floor, breathing heavily with a raspy voice. _She must have put up_ _a fight_, Liam thought in silent admiration.

One of the men stepped to her side and removed the blindfold. The crowd gasped, the leader’s eyes widened in terror. The woman was facing away from Liam, so he could not see what was the issue here.

The village leader ordered the man to put the blindfold on the semi-conscious woman again. Then he raised his voice to make an announcement. As he spoke, he pointed first at the woman, then at Liam. The message was clear. They were both about to die.

_ Footnotes _

1 "Manners are what keeps human societies from collapsing in on themselves, trust me on this", had Mr. Fell said to him while they were having afternoon tea in the bookshop. "I would say, economy is what keeps human societies from collapsing in on themselves", Liam had answered. "Oh no no no", Mr. Fell had countered and reached for a napkin, "think it through, young man. Manners go first. How can anyone sell something if people were to simply steal from them the moment they saw some object they wished for?" "But that’s ethics, not manners." "Same thing, young man, same thing. In the basic edition, at least."


	4. The Gift of Language

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An angel gets emotional over his demon getting himself in trouble (even if said trouble was over two millennia ago), the demon can't handle it and a human tries to make sense out of this whole mess. Meanwhile, at another point in space-time, another human continues his struggle to communicate with his surroundings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winter vacations really do wonders. Hope you enjoy this next chapter!

“So you are telling me”, Abigail said slowly, her voice sounding as if coming to her from a far distance, “that you met my boyfriend more than two millennia ago in some Celtic village?”

She was talking more to herself than to the snake-eyed man in front of her and felt her body trembling slightly as if her legs were threatening to buckle. She heard the thunder growling outside, and the noise got all mixed up with the throbbing in her ears until she no longer knew which was which.

“Yup”, was Mr. Crowley’s monosyllabic response.

Mr. Fell stepped forward, hands hovering mid-air as he studied Abigail’s expression. “Do you need to sit down, dear?”, he asked very politely.

Abigail pondered over that for a moment. “No, I think I’m fine for the moment. Thank you.”

“Good.” Mr. Fell nodded, then turned to his partner. “Are you absolutely positive that it is the same man which you saw in Abigail’s memories? Not just someone looking very much alike? An ancestor, perhaps?”

“No, it _is_ the same person. Also, it fits. I never thought about it much afterwards, but looking back now, I realize that he was wearing rather weird clothes. He was wearing _jeans_, thousands of years before they were invented, Aziraphale. And that’s not all. He spoke a language which, at the time, I did not understand. I don’t remember his exact words, since I was not at my best and it was all just gibberish to me anyway, but now that I try to recall the sound of it, it might very well have been modern English.”

Mr. Fell became very still, all fidgeting and cautiousness fell off from him as he thought about this matter from various perspectives. “So this young man has travelled through time and space, going from this place and date to another era.” He took a deep breath. “Come again, how did _you_ get to be in that village?”

“Uh, you know, usual business, I was in that village for a quick temptation. Did not mean to linger or even get too close. There was this girl, or young woman, who was known to possess a quite potent gift of premonition. Well, I would say she was simply more perceptive than her folks. Lucky for her, her culture at the time considered her to be a seer, and as such she was respected, not burned. Plus, she was the village leader’s daughter, which added to her status. That, however, also put her in a nasty position. She was being trained by their local druid to become a priestess, which required her to stay unmarried. But her father was amidst some negotiations with another village leader, who threatened to attack them, bla bla bla, you remember all those petty little conflicts they had back then.”

Abigail saw Mr. Fell nod knowingly, and only then realized fully that both men standing in the room with her were talking about events from BC as though they had both been there. Because they had. They _had_ been there. She felt her eyes widen even more and probably looked like a goldfish by now.

“So as the old tale goes, harvest had been bad, morale was low, war came at a high cost of resources, which they did not really have, so her father considered to ensure peace with the other village leader by marrying off his daughter to the other village leader’s son, some dull and plain bloke with zero imagination. That would have ended the woman’s career as a priestess, of course, and sentenced her to a small, confined life. Her father did not like this at all, because he was not as stupid as he looked and genuinely believed that his daughter had the potential to greatly serve their community as a priestess – but at the same time, he was worried sick about local politics and thus, undecided.”

Mr. Fell kept very still, silently calculating. “And your job there was…”

“… to help daddy make up his mind and give him a nudge in the direction of marrying off his daughter, exactly. Because my employer’s monitoring department concluded that if she were to stay and complete her training as a priestess, she would indeed gain a bit of power and do some good in the world – and you know, good is bad.” Mr. Crowley pursed his lips, thereby exposing a set of sharp teeth. Abigail wondered if the fangs had always been there or if they had materialized as an involuntary manifestation of the disgust he was displaying.

“So you went to that village, saw our young missing person there, and then were on your un-merry way? Is that all?”, Mr. Fell enquired.

Mr. Crowley gave a long sigh, then rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Uh, no, there’s more. Truth is, I was careless. I had just been on a rather stressful trip to Greece – you know, the poison hemlock thing, sad story, I liked that guy, though he annoyed the Heavens out of me at one point – so I was stupid enough to walk into a trap for evil spirits, some dim-witted thing that their druid had set up, and that I normally should have spotted, but so what, it happens.”

“Like that earlier?”, Abigail asked eagerly, a little proud of herself for seeing that connection. Her curiosity was spiking as she went through the difficult process of making sense out of the mess of revelations to which she had been exposed today. All she earned herself at this stage, however, was a glare from those yellow snake eyes. _Remind me not to hurt that guy’s pride again any time soon_, she thought, this time more wisely keeping it to herself.

Mr. Fell showed no reaction to the little exchange between the human and the demon, instead he kept starring at his husband with an expression that could only be described as _pained_.

“Oh, stop looking at me like it’s your fault!”, Mr. Crowley exclaimed, throwing up his hands and then not quite knowing what to do with them, “it wasn’t, obviously! It was _I _who messed up. That’s why I don’t tell you these things!”1

They looked at each other for a several seconds, something unspeakable going on between them. Abigail, holding her breath, could not guess what either of them were thinking, before Mr. Crowley continued with his story.

***

Liam half expected one of the men in the stinky room to jump up right away and chop of his head, but then he saw mystery woman whisper something into Gandalf’s ear, and Gandalf stepped towards the leader and spoke to him quietly, but intently for a bit. Of course, Liam could not make out anything, but then again probably nobody could, until suddenly the village leader jumped up, took up his iron shield and a sword and clashed them together a few times. The ear-piercing noise let the crowd fall silent, all eyes were on their king, who raised his voice to make an announcement. At first, his words earned him weak protest, but then he added something and everyone cheered, roaring loudly and hoarsely. Men started supporting their injured fellows, and lead them out of the hall one by one. Liam already thought people had forgotten about him and considered trying to sneak out, when his old pal Dick came back to his side and grabbed the end of the rope that was cutting into his wrists, pulling on it violently. _Here we go again_, Liam thought, and then let himself be escorted back through the village and into the shabby, smelly barn.

At this point, Liam felt more courageous, because it seemed he had nothing more to lose. “You mind telling me what’s going on?”, he said to Dick, knowing well enough that the latter could not understand him. Dick snorted, making it clear what he thought. _Okay, so what_, Liam said to himself, gathered whatever was left of his physical strength, and then, metres in front of the barn, he stopped dead, forcing his captor to do the same. Dick turned around, stunned at this disobedience for just a moment, and Liam used this brief moment to take advantage of Dick’s attention.

“Li – am”, he said clearly, trying to point at himself with a gesture of his head, since his hands were still tied up and almost completely numb.

Dick stared at him. It was hard to read his expression, with his face mostly covered by a beard, some scars and dirt, but at least he seemed to understand that the strange young man was giving it another try at communicating with him.

Liam expected him to harshly turn around and pull on his rope again, but the man kept looking at him. His expression changed, the lower half of his face convulsing into something that could be interpreted as a grin. “Li-am”, he repeated, and Liam felt a spark of hope. Then he saw Dick raise a hand, hoping the man would now point to himself and speak his own name, but instead he pointed at the sun, watching if Liam would follow his glance. Liam did. Dick kept pointing at the sun, then moved his finger down and up again, like drawing a circle. He retracted his hand, and Liam looked at him again. Then Dick gave a nod towards him and made a universally understandable gesture by drawing a line in front of his own throat in a slicing motion, his face convulsing again. This time it clearly was a grin, and it was a cruel one.

Feeling as though the cold numbness from his hands was creeping into the rest of his body, Liam had no choice but to let himself be escorted back into the barn and tied up on a hook in the wall. When the door closed, he finally gave in to exhaustion and allowed himself to cry freely. The message had been clear.

They would kill him the next morning.

He sat there in his misery, leaned back against the disgusting wooden wall of the barn, when to his surprise the door was opened again. Three men came in, and they dragged the woman from before along. Although she was obviously too drained to fight them, they still seemed wary of her, considering it necessary to have three people guard her even in her semi-conscious state, while for Liam one had been more sufficient. It was a bit offensive, really.

The men tied her up on another hook in the wall on the opposite end of the room, then left. Liam watched curiously, but kept silent until they had left and locked the door behind them.

_So let’s see if you are a bit easier to communicate with_, Liam thought, but grew discouraged upon taking in her sight in the dimly lit barn. Whatever had happened, it had taken quite a toll on her. Plus, she was still blindfolded. Only now it occurred to Liam that the men had left him alone in the room with her, although they regarded her as highly dangerous. He rolled his shoulders in an attempt to regain some feeling in his arms, then sighed. What about it? Even if she was dangerous, so were they. Also, these were superstitious times. Maybe that woman suffered some kind of disfigurement in her face that had made the villagers mistake her appearance for a bad omen or some nonsense like that.

He cleared his throat, then tried to get the newcomer’s attention. “Hey”, he said, not too loudly, as he was worried Dick outside might be listening in and demanding them to shut up if he heard either of them talking. No reaction. “Hey, you over there – maybe we could help each other here.”

Nothing again. Liam leaned back and resorted himself to waiting until hopefully, she would have recovered a bit.

A few hours went by, until finally, the pile of black clothes and red hair stirred weakly.

“Hi there, finally awake?”

It took a bit for the other person to move around and prop them up into a sitting position. She could not see him, of course, but directed her face towards him and seemed to listen carefully.

When she answered, it was in a raspy voice that could have belonged to either a man or a woman. First, she tried a language that was similar to what the tongue which the villagers had spoken. When Liam showed no sign of understanding and tried to convey that by speaking in an apologizing tone, the tone of her voice changed as well. Liam understood that she now tried speaking another language to him, hoping to pick one that he would know. Then another. Then another. One of them, Liam was quite sure, was Ancient Greek2. Another some form of Chinese. Again another sounded kind of like Arabic, then came one that might have been Hebrew.

Most languages he did not recognize and he could not even place them. How could anyone have travelled so far in this era? Liam was bewildered, marvelling at that woman’s (or man’s) astonishing multilingualism – and incredibly frustrated at the same time. There he was in the presence of someone who was apparently a language-genius, and still they could not find any overlap.

***

“So you could not even _talk_ to him?” Abigail felt her whole body tense up with dread. The whole situation Mr. Crowley had described already sounded terrible enough, and even though she knew it made no sense, she could not help but feel responsible for the suffering Liam was going through right now. Yes, she admitted to herself, she felt as if it was all happening right at this very moment. Time was a dimension, not unlike space, she remembered. So in a way, Liam was sitting there in that barn, being held captive by Celtic villagers right _now_. It was just happening at another point in the vast coordinate system of space-time. She had the curious notion that time was mere distance, and Liam was not in another era, but rather far, far away from her.

“Well, in the end I could.”

Even Mr. Fell seemed surprised at that. “But how?”, he asked, “Your powers were bound by the chains!”

“My _demonic_ powers, yes”, Mr. Crowley answered, stepping restlessly from one foot to another as though talking about this point was uncomfortable for him, “but after doing some introspection, I had a… a…”

“Revelation?”, Mr. Fell tried to help him.

Mr. Crowley made a face at the expression, but continued nonetheless. “The runes on the chains were such that I could not do anything evil. I could, however, do some kind of blessing. I could provide the young man with a -”, here, he made a vague gesture with one of his long hands, “- a gift. In this case, the gift of the local language.”

“Oh, _Crowley_!” Mr. Fell looked at him in honest admiration and wonder.

“Blasted, angel, no need to get sentimental!”, Mr. Crowley snarled, “I almost discorporated from the effort. I did _not_, before you start panicking again, but it took me out for another few hours, until it was almost evening. By then, our young friend had come to terms with suddenly being able to fluently speak a language he had never heard before.”

_Footnotes:_

1 Aziraphale made a mental note to ask Crowley later, how many more of _these things _there had been. Not that he expected to get an honest answer, but he might be able to estimate based on Crowley’s reaction.

2 Thereby, Liam became the very first and probably only person in all of human history, who sincerely regretted _not_ having studied a dead language at school, as he actually might have used it to talk to someone who was alive.


	5. Cutting loose all those Chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam and his uncanny companion have a long due, yet short conversation. Help comes from an unexpected source.  
Aziraphale feels something is off with the weather.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! Sincerely hope that 2021 brings better times for all of you!
> 
> My New Year resolution: Get back into writing regularly. Thus, to be concluded soon!  
Current prediction: Two or three chapters more.

By the time the red-haired woman finally awoke, Liam had long worked his way through a panic attack.

Dick had opened the door and peeked into the barn twice over the course of the afternoon, only to have a quick suspicious look at the slumped figure at one end of the room – as if to make sure she was still were she was supposed to be –, then thrown some rather nasty insults at Liam, before leaving them alone again. So much was to be expected. What was not expected, however, was that suddenly Liam _understood_ every single vulgar word that Dick had said.

When that realization hit him, as he was starring into Dick’s greasy face, he did not know whether to laugh or cry first. He starred in shock, completely frozen. Lucky for him, Dick just shook his head and went out again.

When Liam’s mind had cleared a bit, he started experimenting with this new ability he had gained. He focused on the door, thought _door_ in his native English, and then a word came to him all by itself, and he knew it was the corresponding term in the locally spoken language. He repeated this experiment with anything he could see around him: The window, the straw, the ground, … And the words just came effortlessly. What about modern objects? He looked down on his legs. _Jeans_, he thought, waiting for the translation to pop up, but nothing came. So these words had no equivalent, which made sense.

His cellmate had done something to him, Liam was sure of that at least. And it had cost her quite a lot of energy, as she had passed out again right after casting that spell or whatever, much to Liam’s frustration. As much as he pitied that miserable creature, he _really_ wanted to talk to her, now more than ever.

Also, his stomach was empty and his throat felt like it was covered with sand, which did not exactly lighten his mood.

When she finally stirred, Liam really had to restrain himself not to burst out and overwhelm her with the millions of questions that were on burning on his tongue. Instead, he reminded himself to be patient and give her the necessary time to wake up. She did so slowly, grunting and groaning as she painfully lifted herself from her lying position to sit propped up against the wall. She still could not see, of course, but Liam could tell she was listening closely.

After breathing heavily for several minutes, she turned her head towards Liam. “Understand me now?”, she asked quietly, and Liam could have sworn there was a faint hissing sound whenever she pronounced any _s_-sound in the language they now shared.

“Uh, yes – thank you very much for that”, Liam forced himself to say first, remembering the lessons in manners that a very special friend had taught him, then he blurted out: “How in the world did you do that?”

“I gave you a present”, she answered, showing no intention of elaborating further. Liam sighed, but for now accepted that there were more pressing matters at hand. Their death sentence, for instance.

“Alright, that’s very useful indeed. Got any more tricks up your sleeve? ‘Cause as I understand it, we are both tied up and about to get our heads chopped off by the morning.”

“Are you tied up in chains too?”

“No, ropes.”

“Got anything sharp with you? Or something to make fire with?”

“Neither. I already tried rubbing the ropes against the barn wall and the floor, but could not get any sparks. Too moist.”

“Right, it will be.” She thought for a bit, then said aloud, half to him, half to herself: “Wishing for somebody’s bond’s to fall off is a good thing, isn’t it?”

“Well, I would say so, yeah. But why… ?”

“You’re a good guy, aren’t you?”

“I… I don’t know. I wasn’t always”, he admitted, reminiscing about his former self, who had almost lost his way once, in a state of despair. “But I try to be now.”

“What made you change?”, the woman inquired.

Liam was taken aback. He felt as if the woman was studying him, trying to decide on what kind of person he was and whether he could be trusted, or used.

“A while ago, I had an encounter with… well, you wouldn’t know the guy. I tried to rob him, but he was having none of it. He talked me out of it. Met him a few times since, and he pretty much changed my whole view on the world.”

The woman had listened closely, leaning forward a bit. Then, suddenly, she let her head fall back and laughed quietly, exposing a set of sharp, white teeth that stood out in the dark of the shabby barn. “Unbelievable”, she finally said, talking more to herself than to him.1 Then she focused on the task at hand again.

“Fine. Former bad guy _miraculously_ turned good. Plus, freeing a good person from being tied up with a nasty rope, that should be good too, check. Should do. Fine. Here’s what I propose. I can make it so your ties fall off. No, don’t ask me why or how, I don’t have the energy to explain”, the woman cut him off harshly before he could even say anything, as if he had seen Liam open his mouth in surprise, though that wasn’t possible, “But when I do, I’ll probably pass out again. These chains here drain me, and restrict me in what I can do.” She took a deep breath, and there was the uncanny hissing sound again, “After I do that, you will need to sneak out and take out the guard, but without waking up the whole village. When you have done that, I want you to come back in here, take off my chains – mind you, the guard has to be taken out _first_, otherwise he is gonna hear the clattering noise and alarm others. It’s gonna be a desperate attempt, but it’s all I can come up with under these circumstances. You feel up to it?”

Liam felt his body tremble. He was weak from hunger and the discomfort of being tied up for an entire day, and Dick was clearly stronger than him, but he didn’t have a better proposal either. There was also no point in waiting, as he would only get weaker as time progressed.

“Alright, let’s go for it. Thank you very much, in any case. And I’m sorry if I…”

“_No_, don’t say that. This is not gonna work if you have that option in mind already. Also”, she added, voice getting even sharper, “don’t you even dare to even consider running off and leaving me here. I’ll hunt you down, find you and make sure you never get a good night’s sleep again if you do that – _have I made myssssself__ clear_?”

Liam wondered how she intended to do that if she were to be left here and murdered by superstitious villagers, but had the uneasy feeling that he did not really want to know that right now and therefore, did not ask.

“Yeah, you’re right. And the second thing, I’ll remember it.”

“Smart boy. Another warning, if your hands are tied up tightly, which I assume they are, they are going to hurt a lot as soon as I take off those ropes. That’s gonna be the blood flowing back into them. You must not scream, do you understand?”

Liam swallowed dry. “Yeah, I see. I won’t scream. Go ahead, set me free!”

It was only then that Liam realized he had not even asked for the woman’s name, and he regretted it instantly as he saw the rope on his wrists fall off onto the ground as though they had been cut by an invisible pair of scissors, and as she slumped down again, rendered unconscious once more. Next thing, he found himself kneeling on the ground, biting his lips to suppress a scream, his upper body bent forward over his hands as if to protect them.

Minutes went by before Liam dared to sit up. He raised his hands in front of his face, moving his cold fingers one by one to test them. Oh well. Would have to do.

As quietly as he could, he got up on the straw-covered ground. Every twig rustling under his feet felt traitorously loud as he approached the door step by step. The door itself looked like a trap to him now. Would it squeak? Had it made any noise before? He had been too focused on the people coming in to pay attention to the door as such. Liam felt his heartbeat quicken. He tried to steady himself by taking a few deep breaths in a row, and then slowly, very slowly began to push the door open.

There, in front of the barn, lay Dick, leaned against the trunk of a felled tree. First, Liam thought he was simply propped up against it, looking at the night sky. Then, squinting, he realized that Dick had his eyes closed. _Is that guy asleep? What kind of guard is that? _Liam saw an object lying on the stamped-down grass next to him, something he identified as a kind of waterskin, and a suspicious arouse on his mind. When he heard Dick snoring loudly, his suspicion was confirmed. Dick was heavily intoxicated. Liam could hardly believe his luck. He had a quick look around, checking if there were additional, more trustworthy guards, but could not see anyone. The next houses were relatively far away, as the barn used for prisoners was built separate from the villager’s living and sleeping places.

_Looks like all I got left to do is taking care of my cellmate’s chains_, Liam thought and walked back into the barn. He considered closing the door again for additional noise cancellation, but then realized he needed a bit more light to have at least one proper look at the chains before he could get started on undoing them, so he left the door open and ventured closer to his companion.

He did not get far, though.

Without the slightest noise, somebody had approached him from behind. Before Liam could react, he felt a hand pressed firmly on his mouth and an arm wrapped tightly around his throat.

He gave a squeal of surprise, but the noise was swallowed by the strangers hand.

“Don’t scream”, somebody whispered into his ear. They spoke in a threatening, yet soothing tone, trying to convey the message while believing that Liam did not understand them, “That would do neither of us any good. I will let go now, and you will stay quiet. And don’t get any ideas. I have a knife.”

Before Liam could decide on how to proceed, he felt the other person let go. He felt dizzy and disoriented and only now realized that he had stopped breathing. Gasping, he turned around to look at the other person who had drawn back towards the barn door, holding a small knife in their hand as announced.

“You!”, escaped from his mouth even before his brain had fully processed this new development and passed it on to his consciousness.

The young woman tilted her head, looking at him. “So you do speak our language”, she noticed.

“Uh, I did not until this afternoon. She taught me”, he explained, making a gesture towards the unconscious prisoner at the other end of the room.

In the dark, he could not make out her facial expression, but he imagined it to be something between surprised and skeptical. “She is a good teacher, then”, she finally said.

“Indeed she is”, Liam muttered, not quite knowing what else to say on the matter. He cleared his throat, then asked: “Did you poison the guard?”

“I did not poison him”, she answered quickly, sounding defensive, “I merely helped him to get a good night’s sleep. That poor fellow needed it desperately.”

“Ah, I see”, Liam said, grinning despite his better judgment.

“Anything funny?”, the young woman snarled.

“No, not at all.” Liam got a grip on himself. “Thank you.”

“There is nothing to thank me for, yet”, she replied briskly, “I might still stab you.”

“So is that what you came here for? To stab me? If you want me dead so badly, why did you convince your village leader to postpone my execution until tomorrow, then?”

She seemed to study his face for a bit. Liam assumed that she had better night vision than himself, as she was far more used to these terrible light conditions. What would he have given for an electric torch right now!

“You are very perceptive”, she finally said, and lowered her weapon. Liam felt his muscles relax a bit, not having realized until now how much he had tensed up. “You are right, I don’t want to kill you. Neither her”, she said, pointing towards the other woman in the barn, “I want you to flee, and I want you to take me with you.”

***

Thunder growled in the distance.

Mr. Fell twitched, momentarily pressing his eyes together. Abigail noticed, and so did Mr. Crowley. “What is it, Zira?”, he asked, sounding alert.

“Something…” Mr. Fell shook his head in confusion, “Something is off. That storm is not a regular one.”

“It’s… just a thunderstorm?”, Abigail asked shyly, “A bit cliché that there is a storm while a bunch of people are investigating a paranormal threat, but still, just a storm, right?”

The bookshop owner frowned. “It could be, but it feels off. It feels as if…”

“As if what?”, his partner asked, surprising Abigail with his suddenly very gentle tone. She could see why, now. Mr. Fell looked heavily distressed.

“As if this weather phenomenon is a manifestation of something being wrong. A reaction, so to say.”

Mr. Crowley thought for a while. “Was there any sign of a storm before your boyfriend disappeared?”

That question confused Abigail, but so did most of the things she had seen and heard today, so she thought about it. “No, I think not. It started getting windy as I was on my way to your shop, Mr. Fell.”

The two men exchanged a glance, and Abigail began to tremble.

***

Liam was very glad to have help in disentangling the unconscious red-haired woman from the chains wound around her upper body. She had been wrapped tightly and mercilessly, and his new friend turned out to be considerably more skilled at handling these chains than himself.

“How about you tell me your name?”, Liam asked, kneeling down beside the young woman, trying to make as little noise as possible as he got to work.

“Lesley, daughter of Arlynn.” She looked at him. “How are you called?”

“Uh… Liam”

And because she seemed to expect something, he added: “Liam, son of James.”

“Hm. Unusual names, but that is hardly surprising”, she commented, opening up yet another loop. “We should be able to remove them now.”

Together, they pulled the now loosened up mesh of chains over the woman’s head and off her body. They both startled and jumped back when the woman tensed and gasped. Her body convulsed, her back violently arching off the ground. Then she sank back down, going limp again.

“What was that?”, Lesley asked, sounding scarred.

“I think… I think those chains cut her off from some kind of power source.” He took a deep breath, struggling to keep his voice steady as he vividly remembered the gruesome pain he had experienced when the blood had flown back into his numb hands. “When we took them off, that energy probably flooded back into her, which must have been quite overwhelming. Thus this reaction.”

Lesley still looked a bit shaken, but nodded wordlessly and got closer again. “She is still unconscious”, she noted, “We will have to carry her.”

They got the woman between them, each slinging one of her arms over their shoulders, and made their way out into the darkness as quietly as they could.

_Footnotes:_

1 A few months after this event, a heavily drunk Crowley would run into an equally drunk Aziraphale in an Anatolian tavern, and their conversation would contain a series of very confusing allusions which Aziraphale would only remember and understand about two and a half millennia later.


	6. Conversations in a Cave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a clear Saturday morning in 399 BC, a demon wordlessly accepts that his employer's plan has not quite worked out (because he actually does not mind that at all).  
On a very rainy Friday evening in 202? AD, said demon puts his artistic skills to good use. (Or bad use. Whatever you prefer.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the story continues. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> PS: Sorry if this chapter does not bring the story forward as fast as you might have liked, but it was just soooooo much fun to write! Have some footnotes as a compensation.

“So what then?”

“Uh… “ Mr. Crowley rubbed his eyes, then started to massage his temples with two fingers each. “Well, not sure how reliable my memory on the next part is, with me being mostly out-of-order and blindfolded, but in the meantime, our priestess-in-training and our time-traveler somehow became friends. She wanted to flee from that village to escape her forced marriage, and he wanted to escape before they could chop off his head. Thus, they had formed a community of purpose.”

Mr. Fell nodded in sympathy with the young woman. “Understandable, but risky.”

“Indeed. She had heard rumors about villages further south, where the order of druids was flourishing. Her reasoning was that since our lad Liam was speaking in an unknown tongue, he must come from one such far away village, where nobody would know her and she would be free to resume her training. She was counting on finding some priest or priestess willing to take her under their wing. Her village’s druid had given her his blessing and presented her with a few tokens – jewelry, dried herbs, ritual objects and such – that she should show to the priests at her destination, as a proof for her being one of their own.”

“Still does not sound like she had a particularly solid plan”, Abigail remarked warily.

“No, definitely not, but it was the best she could come up with”, Mr. Crowley replied, “and I would certainly not protest. Sometimes humans achieve the craziest things against all odds, and it’s kinda fun to watch. Sometimes, of course, they just walk straight into their doom. Anyway, they dragged me into the forest, making sure to get a good distance between themselves and the village before anybody noticed they had gone. The girl was clever, so she knew how to obscure tracks and walk on trails that would be hard to follow, but still, there was only so far they could walk with me being useless and Liam being mostly dead on his feet as well. So after a couple of hours, they sought shelter in a small cave beside a river, and that was where I woke up.”

***

Having put their unconscious companion on the small cave’s floor, Liam and Lesley sank down beside her, both panting heavily. The full moon shone brightly that night, lucky for Liam who otherwise would not have been able to make out anything in that dark forest.

Just as Liam thought he might get a bit of sleep, he felt Lesley staring at him expectantly.

“You come from the south, right?”, she blurted out, almost glowing with eagerness.

“Uh… I am not so sure, to be honest.”

“Did you lose your way?”

“Well, no, you see, it’s a bit more complicated than that. A great deal more complicated, actually, you know?”

“Explain, then. I am a good listener.”

“Yeah, I am sure about that. I was… brought here by some kind of magic, I believe. I found a piece of jewelry, an amulet – or actually, my girlfriend found it – and I took it in my hand and opened it up and then, all of a sudden, I found myself here in this forest.”

Lesley seemed to think about this for a bit. “Do you still have that amulet? Can it take you back there?” _And can it take me with you? _She did not say it aloud, but the implication was clear.

“I have it, but it doesn’t seem to work anymore. Back in the barn, I tried to open it again – was kind of tricky, with my hands tied up by my wrists and my fingers going cold – but it seems to have locked itself. I can’t get it open anymore, and I’m quite sure it’s not just because I am so clumsy. It is _resisting_ me, if that makes any sense.”

“Can I see it?”

Liam took out the amulet, feeling its many lines and patterns imprinted on the outside. Again, he tried to open it, but the mechanism would just not work, or rather _refuse_ to work. He handed it over to Lesley, who got a bit closer to the entrance of the small cave to study it under the moon light. After a few minutes, she came back. “There is great power bound within this object”, she said, sounding serious, “I do not understand it, but I can sense it.”

Liam took it back and put it into his pocket again. Lesley reached into the bag she had brought along with her, took out a waterskin and a small loaf of flatbread. “Here, have some of this.”

Thanking her, he took both and ate the small meal. It did not have much taste, but he would gratefully accepted anything edible right now. After he had finished, he gave in to sleep.

It was early morning when he awoke again, the sun barely having crossed the horizon, some faint rays illuminating the forest and setting a mysterious mood.

Still sleepy and disoriented, Liam sat up to discover that the two women were no longer by his side. They were sitting closer towards the entrance of the cave, talking quietly.

When they heard him, they turned towards him, and Liam could not help but flinch. Now he finally understood why the villagers had been so scared of the stranger’s eyes.

They were clearly not human.

The red-haired woman was the first to speak, grinning in way Liam could only describe as mischievously. “Looks like our sleepyhead has finally woken up!”, she said and had the nerve to sound cheerful.

“You’re the one to talk”, he replied, stunned by her behavior, “You had us drag you all the way here!”

“Which I am very grateful for”, she said, still grinning. Liam snorted. He was about to come up with some witty reply, when the red-haired woman cut him off with a gesture. She tilted her head, listening to something in the distance. “They are coming for you”, she informed them, “And they are angry.”

***

“So what then?”, Abigail inquired breathlessly.

Mr. Crowley kept silent. He studied her face for a few seconds, similar to the way he had done back in the bookshop. He was thinking about what he could tell her.

“What then?”, she repeated, insistingly, “Tell me all of it! I need to know!”

Another moment passed, then Mr. Crowley gave a resigned sign. “I told you in the beginning”, he said very slowly, “that the good part is that I know where your boyfriend _went_. The bad part is, I don’t know how that story ended.”

“But you were there!”, Abigail protested.

“Yeah, well, I…” He cut off abruptly, his eyes widened. “I am such an idiot.”1

He stretched out a hand to his partner. “Pen and paper”, he demanded. Mr. Fell reached into the bag slung over his shoulder and produced both requested items from it. Abigail noticed that the paper was perfectly free from any wrinkles despite having been in that bulky bag for almost an hour.

Pen and paper in hand, Mr. Crowley rushed over to the antique desk standing at the front end of the shop, where Mrs. Grey used to do her bookkeeping. Frantically, he started to draw. Every now and then, he would pause for a moment, close his eyes as if to remember something, only to continue with the same demeanor as before.

After a couple of minutes, he had finished his task, and stood up from the desk. Wordlessly, he handed the paper to Mr. Fell, who took it and studied it carefully. Abigail stood beside him and marveled at the drawing Mr. Crowley had produced.

It was a very clean, detailed depiction of the amulet. The schematic had been drawn systematically and clearly, showing it from two perspectives – once from the front, once flipped over showing its backside. All the intricate lines were there, the curly patterns covering it all over. Abigail felt as if looking at the real thing, only in gray. “Amazing”, she muttered, only now recalling that this had been the whole point of their one-way-mind-meld in the first place.

“Indeed… most remarkable”, Mr. Fell said after a while. His eyes were widened as he looked up at his partner’s face. It was clear that he was not referring to the latter’s drawing ability.2

“Can you recognize any of these symbols?”, Abigail asked, feeling a faint shimmer of hope.

“Well, yes and no”, Mr. Fell answered, “Some of them look like Enochian letters, but then again not. It is, as if…” He paused, then put the paper on a nearby table and folded it right in the middle so that the kink came to be right between the front and back side’s representation of the amulet. He neatly ruptured the paper in two halves. Abigail watched breathlessly as Mr. Fell put the two half-pages on top of each other so that the two side of the drawing lay exactly on top of each other, then held it up against the light.

“Blasted, angel”, Mr. Crowley murmured, “you’re a genius.”

Abigail saw, what he meant. Now against the light of the ceiling lamp, it became obvious that the back- and front-side of the medallion were not just flip sides of a coin, but literally halves of each other. The lines merged into what looked to be very narrow, intricate writing. The style looked similar to the inscriptions over the door that had zapped Mr. Crowley. It had to be the same language! How had Mr. Fell called it? Enochian? Abigail would have to put that into a search engine later.

“Connecting front and back, literally _now_ and _then..._”, Mr. Fell said, lost in thought, “the front side reaching back in space…”

“...in order to reach back in time”, Mr. Crowley completed the sentence. The two men (or man-shaped beings) looked at each other again, and Abigail could literally see them thinking in perfect unison, they themselves being two parts of the same entity.

She felt in awe, and at the same time a bit jealous.

“I was not aware humans could do that”, Mr. Fell finally said, “Whoever produced this had a profound understanding of time and space.”

“Inter-dimensional travel we have, then”, Mr. Crowley remarked, almost vibrating with excitation, “Inter-galactic travel should be a piece of cake now.”

Mr. Fell frowned silently. “Something is still missing”, he stated, “This neatly describes how to travel in time and space, mechanistically, but it does not specify to _where_ and _when_ the journey should actually lead.”

“You’re right, the final coordinates are not there”, Mr. Crowley agreed, “They must be written on the inside of the thing, then – which we cannot see, because Abigail never got to seem them. Damn!”

Abigail listened nervously. Was that it? Had they reached a dead end?

“We don’t need those, dear boy”, Mr. Fell remarked, “since _you_ provided us with his destination already.”

“Well, yes, obviously. But there is bound to be more inside, right? Some sparks of magic to kick-start the ignition, for instance. And the _purpose_. Such a journey would have to be done for a specific purpose.”

He said it all as if it was the most logical thing in the world. Abigail shook her head in confusion, then she remembered something. “Mr. Crowley”, she said, “you still haven’t told us what happened in that forest.”

***

“Get back into the cave, stay behind me and be quiet”, the red-haired woman commanded sternly, her voice taking on a tone that tolerated no talking back.

Liam and Lesley got back and watched breathlessly as the woman just kept sitting right beside the entrance of the small cave, staying perfectly calm. Now, they heard them too. Footsteps, not treading lightly, but stomping heavily on the forest’s ground. They were getting closer and closer as the minutes went by, and finally they could see them. There was a group of men, or rather men and boys, as some of them were fourteen at the most – but all of them armed fiercely.

Liam’s heart was racing so hard it felt painful in his chest, and he knew Lesley was probably feeling the same way. They stood at the other side of the river, looking all around. In a moment, they would see the three people cowering in that cave, and it would all be over…

_Abigail_, Liam kept thinking,_ I am so sorry, Abs, I am so sorry._ But then the must curious thing happened. The men’s glances kept passing over the cave’s entrance, but none of them got caught there. It was, as if they only saw an empty cave. And then Liam looked at the red-haired woman’s face, and at how perfectly calm and confident she was now that she had been freed of her chains, and he realized two things: 1) Whatever she was doing, it was keeping all three of them hidden from the search party’s view despite them being in plain sight, and 2) he still hadn’t asked her for her name. However, now was not the time to do so either.

Lesley must have had the same realization, staring at the nameless woman in silent wonder. The villagers seemed undecided on where to go next, as the path diverged in a few directions from this point on. They kept talking among themselves as they paused for a few minutes, their voices sounding angry.

“Robbing our leader’s daughter! How dare they!”, one of them spoke, bending down to the river to drink. Another one shook his head. “Have you heard, the guard fell asleep – have you ever known that old fellow to fall asleep while on duty? No, certainly not!”

“Then that sorceress must have bewitched him”, the first one agreed.

“Either her, or that other stranger. He had a magic tool with him as well – who knows what else he might be capable of?”

“Filthy scum, robbing our leader’s daughter right before he was about to send note to our neighbor’s leader. Now the negotiations will have to start over again, and it will not go well this time. Next season, war will be upon us, I am telling you!”

Next to Liam, Lesley clasped her hands over her mouth to suppress the sob that threatened to escape from her lips. Not quite knowing whether or not this was appropriate, but now knowing what else to do either, he gently put a hand on her shoulder. She fell still.

All three of them remained mostly motionless until the men had left, having decided to split up in three groups and continue their search along separate paths in the forest.

“I am doing it all wrong”, Lesley blurted out as soon as they could be certain all of them were long gone, “What am I doing here? How can I be so selfish as to leave my people to war?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am bringing harm over my people by not fulfilling my role. I should return.” She got up, but Liam stopped her before she could leave the cave.

“Please, explain me what this is about”, he asked, “believe it or not, I am a good listener too.”

She stared at him, then sat down again and explained her situation. Liam thought about it for a while, looking back and forth between Lesley and the other woman, who was watching their exchange wordlessly.3

When she had finished, Liam looked at her in honest sympathy. “You wanna know what I think?”, he said, speaking very gently, “they don’t have the slightest right to treat you as a commodity. You are not to be bargained over. Whatever happens, it is not your fault. If those people from the other village are set on having a war, they will have a war – with or without you.”

Lesley sighed heavily. “Master said the very same. That is why he advised me to go. But I am scared to be on my own, all this way.”

With _master_ she was probably to referring to Gandalf, Liam thought as a sideline. She looked at him and he was afraid he knew what would come next.

“So when I heard you speak in your foreign language, I thought you might be able to lead the way for me. I could sense that there was no malice in you, so I decided to take the chance of freeing you. You both.” She glanced at the red-haired woman, “But it seems you have lost your way too, like I forfeit mine.”

They fell quiet.

Then, without any warning, the woman broke her silence and got up. “Alright, this was all rather interesting”, she said in a very matter-of-fact voice, “But this is where I leave you.”

***

“You did _what_?”

Abigail made no effort to retain the anger in her voice.

Mr. Crowley shrugged, not apologetically, but rather neutrally, as if saying ‘_Eh, what’s a demon supposed to do?_’

“I liked them”, he stated, as if his actions spoke in favor of that claim, “Remaining with them would have put them in danger, rather sooner than latter. See, I mentioned earlier I was sent there to tempt Lesley’s father Arlynn, the village leader. And I had done that – all the rest, well, that was none of my business anymore. Had anyone from my department gone there to check and spotted me talking to our little run-away, they would have drawn a connection I definitely did not want them to draw – mostly for my own sake, but also for theirs. Consequently, I decided to leave.”

“So... that’s it? It is over?”

Abigail simply could not believe it. They had no more clues. Mr. Crowley could tell her no more. They did not know what was written on the inside of that amulet.

Mr. Crowley opened his mouth, about to say something, but Mr. Fell was faster to speak. “No”, he said, staring warily out of the window, where the wind was howling, tearing on street lamps and building’s facades like a beast with ice-cold claws, “No, I am afraid it is most definitely not over over yet.”

_Footnotes:_

1 Nobody objected, but at the moment, Crowley was too distracted to realize that and complain. He would, however, spontaneously realize it a week later, and call Aziraphale out on it while they were taking a walk through St. James Park. Aziraphale would excuse his shortcoming by pointing out under which unusual circumstances they had both been, an answer which would not satisfy Crowley, and Crowley would be sulking all the way home and all evening.

2 Aziraphale had known Crowley to have a skilled hand and creative mind for a long time by now. Having been involved in creating colorful planetary nebulae, stars and gas giants, Crowley had retained the artistic capacity he had been given as an angel. Not that Crowley would agree to that whenever Aziraphale complimented him. For him, canvasses covered in paint were an unsatisfying substitute for the real thing. Crowley was secretly hoping for virtual-reality-goggles to implement handy interfaces for 3D-painting soon.

3 When filing his report to head office, Crowley would truthfully write that he had successfully tempted the village leader into choosing the easy option and marrying off his talented daughter. Upon receiving a vague complaint about the general outcome of the affair, he would write back that it was most definitely not his fault that she chose to run away upon hearing about her father’s decision, and that monitoring department should have foreseen this option and given him clear instructions on how to prevent it from happening while he was still on location. He could not be everywhere at once, after all. His report would go through several layers of management, until it landed on the desk of a very annoyed Dagon, lord of the files, who finished the matter by sentencing the unlucky demon who had processed the document in the first place to a century in the fiery pit. Not that it had been their fault. However, Dagon had not laughed all day and really found it quite funny.


	7. A Familiar Face

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam accompanies Lesley on her journey towards the south. Following an incident in the forest, they finally encounter some friendliness in this rough world.  
And Liam meets someone he had definitely not expected to see around here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been a while, but at last, the story continues...  
Since I could not in good conscience leave my loyal readers to another cliff-hanger, I decided to post the concluding three chapters all in one go.  
I hope you enjoy - I definitely enjoyed writing! Coming back to this story again and again over the course of this year was highly rewarding for me, and so much fun. Thanks for all your feedback and support - and as usual, every comment is highly appreciated!
> 
> Stay safe you all! :)

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, all so much faster than Liam had expected.

Without anywhere else to go or turn to, Liam had decided to remain by Lesley’s side for now. And truly, this turned out to be for the benefit of both of them. In the beginning, as they were still only days away from Arlynn’s village, they could take turns sleeping and staying awake so as to make sure to not get caught by one of the men looking for the priestess. Lesley would generously share the food she had brought with her, though the fear of what would happen once they run out loomed over Liam. However, it was spring season, close to summer, and thanks to her years of training, Lesley was familiar with the forest and its vegetation. She knew which roots, mushrooms, nuts and berries could safely be consumed – once she was just fast enough to snap a poisonous red little berry out of Liam’s hand before he could put it into his mouth, and would then scold him for his stupidity with an uncharacteristically fiery temper. Moreover, though she admittedly had never needed to put that skill to use before, she also had some idea on how to set up traps for small animals, which after a few failed attempts turned out successful. That part was the hardest for Liam, who had grown up in a time and place where meat was considered an objectified consumable rather than the body part of a creature that had once roamed the earth on its paws. He felt disgusted and squirmed uneasily as Lesley gutted, skinned and later roasted the small hare over a fireplace. Yet, he forced himself to watch closely and learn from her, as he felt that they should share that load, and he was afraid that the scarce products of the forest they gathered along their way would not suffice without this extra nutrient source in the long run. Once he came back home – if he ever found his way back home, and if he was completely honest with himself, doubt had started to creep in on this matter – he would drastically change his eating habits.

Liam learned that where there was prey, there were predators too. One night he was keeping watch as Lesley was sleeping curled up in a small cave, and saw something walking towards him in the nightly forest. He squinted, trying to make out the shape, and then realized with horror that what he saw was a wolf. Unsure what to do, he started shaking, and was about to get up, when he felt Lesley’s hand on his shoulder pulling him back down. She had woken up from him shifting, and silently forced him to stay calm. After a few minutes, the wolf left.

More than once, Liam fell sick, wasting some of the precious food they carried with them by spitting it out again and compelling them to stay put for a day. Liam felt ashamed for slowing Lesley down, but she did not blame him in the slightest, instead setting out to find some herbs that would calm his stomach. Liam took a mental note to have himself checked for parasites and the like in the future (literally). He bitterly realized that he could talk of luck if he ever got home without contracting the plague.

Liam would wash his clothes – jeans, T-shirt and jacket – in the rivers they passed by, and they slowly lost their traitorous colors, dulling down to a tone that would at least from a distance be less dangerous. Without any possibility to shave, he would soon have stubbles growing on his face, which annoyed him, yet he consoled himself by thinking that at least it made him fit better into this time appearance-wise. A few times they passed villages, and once they had made it far enough to safely assume nobody would know about the missing bride-to-be, they even dared to enter them. Liam was wary all the time, expecting someone to try to seize him, but Lesley did all the talking and handled it surprisingly well. She would introduce herself as a traveling priestess, and Liam as her brother who was accompanying her – Liam guessed that otherwise they might have considered her to be dishonorable in some way –, and then ask to converse with the village druid. Sometimes people were hostile and straightforwardly told them to leave. Some druids came but were entirely unhelpful, yet others showed kindness, offering them some advice for the next part of their journey and even presenting them with some bread. It seemed to Liam that all types of attitudes could be found everywhere on the world, at any given time. He found that studying history in school had tempted him into putting people into categories based on the epoch they lived in, but now he learned over and over again that human beings were just as diverse here as they would be thousands of years later.

At night, Liam would see the stars above him and wonder if the stellar constellations were the same that he could have seen in his own era. As far as he remembered, they changed over time – gradually, impossible to observe over the restricted time of a human lifespan – and he reasoned they might have looked a tiny bit different to him, had he ever bothered to drive a car out to the countryside and study the details of the firmament.

The further they got away from their starting point, the more different the language became. Often, the way people spoke was a dialect of Lesley’s language, therefore still quite understandable, but a few of the villages they passed spoke in tongues that Liam could not make out. Lesley could, though she admitted that it was getting more difficult.

*******

About four months after Liam had been dropped into this time and place and started his journey with Lesley, an incident occurred.

By now, summer had come and as they progressed on their way south, which made the nights more pleasant, but also meant it would get hotter during the daytime. Their way had led them across a forest clearing and a meadow, exposing them to the sunlight, and re-entering a forest path felt more than welcome. It was around noon when the two of them decided to take a break and rest a bit in the shadow of the trees. After a light lunch, Lesley said she would like to freshen up a bit at a river she could hear nearby. Liam happily stayed behind to give her privacy, anyway still feeling a bit dazed from the heat. He nodded and looked forward to getting some more rest as he comfortably sat back. Leaned against the stem of an old tree, he found himself silently wondering if that exact tree could still be around by the time he would be born – there were these trees that lasted millennia, right? He had read fantasy stories about humans and the like being trapped in trees, and as he drifted off, he found himself wondering if he could merge with that tree, convince it to keep his mind and body fresh until that fateful day in the distant future. Imagine Abby’s surprise when he, who from her perspective had just disappeared, suddenly popped in through the antiquity store’s door – with shabby clothes and a beard.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the sound of a scream woke him up from his daydreams. The sun was still high up on the sky, so it could not be too long after lunchtime still (he had learned to pay attention to these things, having no phone or watch around to tell him the time). It took him a dreadful moment to realize that it had been Lesley’s voice. Once he had gathered his mental faculties, he jumped up and ran frantically towards the direction Lesley had gone, hoping to find her. His ears were by far not as good as hers – she always knew where to find rivers, picking up the faint sound of running water even from a far distance. He did not have to run far. The river was close, but hidden from plain view as the river bed was carved several feet deep into the terrain. Liam stopped dead at the very edge, just managing to tumble back and not fall right in. At first he thought Lesley might have fallen in herself, and quickly scanned the river for her. Instead, he spotted her standing in the shallow water nearby the shore. She had torn off the cape and shoulder bag she was typically wearing and carelessly tossed it aside on the gravel, but not bothered with her gown, which was getting soaked as the water reached up to her knees. The current was not particularly strong where she was standing, but she was clearly struggling to keep balance as she waded in a tad further, stretching her arms as if reaching out for something. She had to draw back in frustration when she realized that she could not get any further without being washed away by the water. It was only then that Liam realized what was happening: Further in towards the center of the river, where the water got deeper and the current stronger, another human figure was visible, fighting to keep their head over water. Liam identified the figure as a boy, probably something between six and ten years of age, who was clinging to a piece of rock like to a lifeline.

Liam swore under his breath, then quickly climbed down to the shore, tore off his filthy sport shoes and jacket and set out into the water himself. Unlike Lesley or the boy, Liam had gotten swimming lessons when he was younger. He waded in past Lesley who watched him warily, and when his feet could no longer touch the ground swam the last few meters towards the boy. The water was not particularly deep, but Liam had to paddle quite a bit to prevail over the current. He would run out of strength sooner rather than later at this rate. “Hey, you! Hang on to me!”, he yelled at the boy, who looked at him with big, fearful eyes from where he was clinging to the rock. The boy did not seem to understand him as he only stared in shock. Lesley shouted something over to him in another language which Liam did not know, and the boy let go of his rock, throwing his arms around Liam’s neck instead. When they finally got out of the deep water, Liam readily handed the boy to Lesley and sank down on the gravel, panting. When they all had recovered a bit and caught their breath, Liam and Lesley lead the boy away from the river towards a meadow, where the afternoon sun was warming up the air and their clothes could dry.

Lesley talked to the boy for a while and offered him some berries from her bag, which she had gathered the day before. He hesitated, but then accepted them. Finally, she turned to Liam. “He says he is from a village that should be a few hours from here, further up the river. He was playing with friends when he fell in and was dragged along by the water. He could save himself from drowning by clinging to a piece of wood that he had been playing with, then to the rock, but there would have been no getting out if you had not saved him.” She smiled at him warmly, and Liam felt as if he was melting from the inside. Embarrassed, he cleared his throat. “So what’s next? We bring him home?”

“That would be my suggestion too”, she agreed, and Liam was mildly puzzled by the sound of hope he could hear in her voice. Mostly, it puzzled him that it made him sad.

The three of them got to their destination in mid-afternoon. For most of the way, the boy had kept talking to Lesley in this language Liam could not understand, and he had felt a bit isolated. He was in a somber mood when they set foot in the village, but tried his best to keep it to himself, having prepared himself for the inevitable along the way.

Already from a distance Liam had been able to make out that this was not a village like those they had encountered before. It was larger by far, and seemed better structured. The boy lead them past the outskirts into the center, where they found something that Liam felt comfortable calling a small town square. The houses here were bigger and build more solidly than any he had seen before in this era.

The boy ran to one of these houses and knocked. A small, sturdy woman opened the door. When she saw the child, she held a hand to her mouth, then pulled the boy up into a warmhearted, strong hug. Their bliss only lasted for a few moments, however, as next the woman put the boy down again and started talking to him angrily, and even Liam got that the kid was about to get the scolding of his lifetime. The woman’s loud, angry voice stirred the interest of bystanders, who within a few minutes got the message across to a man who could presumed to be the boy’s father and appeared on the town square shortly after. He exchanged a few friendly words with his wife, then spoke to his son in a stern voice, and finally turned to Lesley and Liam. A man of his time, he first looked at Liam by default, then noticed his strange appearance and very politely turned over to Lesley instead, who introduced herself and her brother (at least Liam assumed she did).

She must have recounted the tale of how Liam saved the boy from drowning, as without any warning, the man turned to Liam again with a wide grin, and then approvingly patted his shoulder or rather slammed his bear-like paw down on it just without breaking any bones. Liam did his very best to smile.

After conversing with the man and later his wife for a while longer, Lesley finally turned to Liam with a smile so happy that it made his heart melt. “They are immensely grateful for bringing their son back and invite us to have dinner with them this evening! They even offer us their hospitality. But there’s more…” She struggled to keep her voice down, but could not conceal the excitement. “When I told them that I am a young priestess looking for a mentor, they mentioned that this town and its surroundings have not one, but a few druids _and __a __druides__s_, and that they are good friends with some of them. They are going to invite them to dinner and introduce us!”

“That’s amazing!”, Liam did his best to sound enthusiastic, as he felt himself getting weary that his time with Lesley was coming to an end. Which was good, of course. This was the path she had set out to take, and now that they had arrived here in this flourishing town of the south, this was where she would stay. Which meant that rather sooner than later, Liam would be on his own, striving to solve the mystery of why and how he had come here. He could feel himself getting dizzy to a point where he was unsure of his footing. It took a lot of him to keep upright, so he was glad when the woman lead them around the house to a long table, where she made them sit until dinner would be served. It was a warm summer night, and by now Liam had grown more used to the smells that lingered in the villages of this epoch, so it would be quite bearable.

Liam exhaled audibly as he sat down on the wooden bench, leaning back and closing his eyes in contemplation. He hoped that he would be able to survive on his own in this hostile time. And he would miss having company on his travels, for sure. Speaking of travels – where actually should he go? He still had no clue, no indications. He had carried the amulet all the way here, having tried to open it countless time, fidgeting with it, meditating over it, staring it down, but it just kept on resisting him.

Lesley noticed his state. “Are you alright? You do look pale.”

“It’s fine”, he tried to reassure her, but it did not sound convincing, as he could easily read from her eyes, which in another time and place could have said _Who do you think you’re kidding_?.

“It is likely that in some way or another, we are going to part ways soon”, she said, speaking out aloud what Liam had been thinking all along, “but that does not mean I am just going to forget about you and leave you to your fate. You have been on this journey with me all this time, and I am going to try my best to help you find your way home. There are wise men and women here – once I have been introduced, I will tell your story and ask if they can help you.”

Liam felt tears well up in his eyes, he hastily wiped them away with a sleeve. “Thank you”, he said earnestly, looking directly at her face.

He had not noticed the man approaching them from behind, who cleared his throat to get their attention. Liam saw that he was holding some clothes, a kind of tunic perhaps. Lesley translated and could not quite hold back a grin. “Bedwyr thinks that your dressing is not quite suitable for dining alongside druids – he would like to borrow you this overcoat to put on over your, as he says, rather unusual pieces of fabric, so as to fit in better.”

Liam did not complain. He just got up, put the cloak over his normal clothes and fidgeted for a while with the brooch that was meant to pin it together by the neck, until Bedwyr could no longer watch him, reached out and snapped it together for him with one skilled move. Liam just tilted his head in what he hoped would be interpreted as gratefulness. Bedwyr responded with grunt that Liam interpreted as friendly, and went back into the house for the time being – perhaps to teach his son a lesson.

As evening fell, the woman came out of the house carrying a large pot of an ominous stew to a fireplace, followed by three children who placed large plates of flat bread and vegetables onto the table. Liam did not know what to make out of the food, but he had learned not to be picky.

Then the guests came, arriving in small groups. Men and women of the village, congratulating the couple on getting their first-born son back from his presumed demise. Then came the druids and one druidess, comparatively elderly and reserved people wearing long robes and tunics. Bedwyr heartily greeted all of them, making sure to be especially polite towards the learned ones. When everyone had settled, he stood up on a trunk and raised his voice, gesturing towards Liam and Lesley, and although Liam could not make out a single word, he understood that he was honoring and introducing them to everyone present at the large table. The village people roared cheerfully, the two druids and one druidess nodded in approval. Liam noticed that he had started to smile – only now it occurred to him that this was the first time in this epoch that people other than Lesley were sincerely _friendly_ to him, despite of his oddness.

Bedwyr stepped down from the trunk and his wife started handing out bowl of meat stew. Liam wondered if he might be able to get around eating some of it, and stick to bread instead, but feared it would be considered impolite. He let his glance wander across the crowd. The children dutifully went around the table, placing cups in front of everyone, followed by a joking Bedwyr, who generously filled them with a drink that Liam identified as some kind of beer. After a tentative sip he found it not exactly to his liking, but not too bad either. He continued studying the people at the table. There were the members of the druid clan, one of whom – the female one – had taken a seat opposite of Lesley and started talking to hear among the noise and clattering of the munching and chatting people. The other two were sitting further down the table, closer to Bedwyr’s family, and caught up in a conversation with a man who was wearing a hooded cape, keeping his face out of sight from Liam’s point of view. For some reason, the man stirred Liam’s interest. He had not been introduced as one of the druids, yet his dressing bore some resemblance to that of the druids, though he seemed cleaner, posher even. Was he some kind of aristocrat? Did they have that type of societal concept? Oh yes, Lesley’s father had been the village leader, after all. But if that man had been a lord or whatever that was called around here, Bedwyr would have been obliged to introduce him in some special way, right? Now that he thought about it, Liam could not remember how or when that particular man had arrived at the table at all. Had he come together with druids? Liam did not think so.

But now Bedwyr passed by the druids and the strange man, offering them beer. The druids modestly accepted some of the beverage. The man, however, seemed delighted to receive it, and Bedwyr enthusiastically filled his cup until it almost spilled over. It did not, however. Neither did a single droplet drip over its edge as the man lifted it to his lips, even though physics as Liam understood it should not have allowed for this to happen.

It was only then that the man tilted his head in such a way that allowed it to Liam to see his face from a sideview, and Liam had to hold back a scream.

Lesley and the druidess fell still, startled by his sudden reaction. Just a second later, a villager sitting next to Liam banged his hand against his back several times. Liam, too stunned to react, made a gulping sound, and some men around him cheered. It took Liam a while to process that the man next to him had mistaken his sound of surprise for the sound of someone choking on their food, and had not tried to smash him, but to save him. Liam grinned with clenched teeth and nodded towards the man, who laughed self-contentedly and took another swig from his cup. Lesley looked at him warily, perhaps a little mortified, and then continued talking to her possible future mentor.

Liam forced himself to act as normally as possible, and resorted to dulling his sense of taste and eat whatever was in reach and seemed edible, while never taking his eyes of the man at the other end of the table for longer than a second.

There were very few things in the world that Liam was absolutely certain of. His love for Abigail was one thing. Another thing was that there, at the other end of the table, sat nobody else than Mr. Fell himself.


	8. The Longest Shortcut in the History of Humanity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Past and Present meet in the eye of an inter-dimensional storm. Farewells and reunions follow closely upon one another. 
> 
> Liam is not accused of trespassing.

The celebration went on. Liam was conflicted on what he should do now – dash right over to the other side of the table and then… Then what? Cry and sob? Yell at him? Laugh and hug him?

Liam was not sure about what was considered etiquette here in this world. Evidently, people had rather rude table manners, as demonstrated by other guests at the long wooden table, who would proudly slam their drinking mugs down whenever somebody said something presumably funny. However, jumping up from your seat and running over to someone else who you were not supposed to be familiar with would still be considered odd, he felt. After all, he did not yet know with absolute certainty yet that Lesley would be accepted in this order of druids, and since the locals thought he was her brother, any weird behavior from his side might screw up her reputation.

He kept watching the man and tried to establish eye contact with him. What puzzled him, however, was that Mr. Fell’s glance would glide over him several times without showing even the slightest sign of recognition. _Is he ignoring me on purpose?_, Liam wondered, _or does he no__t__ recognize me because of the beard and robe that Bedwyr made me wear?_ But that made no sense either. Mr. Fell was not the type who would forget him just like that, not after their very special first encounter and all the afternoon teas they had shared. What else stunned him was how perfectly accustomed Mr. Fell appeared to be to this society – he was fluently conversing in the local language with a few druids, clearly enjoying the beverage and seemed immersed in the scene entirely. Though he seemed too clean, too posh for his surroundings, he was clearly familiar with this time and place. Had he been sent to this epoch too? Had he also spent a few months, maybe even longer, in this place and learned the language? Or had he had some occult help like Liam?

A thousand questions whirled through his head, and he had not even noticed that Lesley had interrupted her conversation with the druidess, until she discreetly put her hand on his leg.

“Liam?”, she said in an inquiring tone. Liam tried to stay calm. “See the blond man over there?” Lesley took a quick look and nodded. “I am familiar with him. He is a friend of mine, in fact.”

Lesley’s eyes widened in astonishment. “So he comes from the same place as you?”

“I think so, but… It is strange. He seems not to know me anymore.” _… or not yet_, he suddenly found himself thinking. That option had come to his mind just now. It seemed absurd, but with all the supposedly impossible things that had happened to him already, it seemed all to possible.

And plausible, too. After all, Mr. Fell with his long out-of-fashion clothes had always looked like a relict from a long gone era. And if Liam was honest, he also _felt_ like it, with his love for old books, his knowledge about all things antique and bizarre, his awkwardness around smartphones, the gramophone in his sitting room, his peculiar yet deep views on society and the world as a whole.

The realization resonated with Liam, culminating in a painful _pang_ in his chest. This Mr. Fell was not _his_ Mr. Fell – not yet. He would not recognize him because he had not met him yet.

Liam leaned back and gave a pained sigh. Mr. Fell had always seemed out-of-place, almost like a being from another world. And perhaps he was exactly that, after all? Liam vividly recalled his meeting with the yellow-eyed woman. Perhaps Mr. Fell was some kind of occult creature as well? However, nobody seemed put off by Mr. Fell like they had by the reptile woman. Although he struck out with his clean linen robes, feathery blond hair and perfect white teeth, nobody seemed remotely uncomfortable – on the contrary. Everyone around him interacted with him fondly, admiringly even.

“And you are certain that it is the same person, not someone looking very much alike?”, Lesley asked quietly.

“Absolutely certain”, Liam confirmed, “I cannot say why I am so sure, but I would recognize him everywhere… and anytime. He just has this special something abound him.”

To Liam’s surprise, Lesley did not object, but studied Mr. Fell’s face intensely for a few seconds, then nodded in understanding. “He does have a very particular aura indeed”, she said, “So you must be right.”

She started up a conversation with the druidess again, which lasted about half an hour. Then she turned over to Liam again. “I inquired about your friend. He is known around these regions as Arthfael, a wandering priest and very wise man. And a... friend of good drinks.”

The last part had become evident to Liam as well, as he had watched dear old Mr. Fell consume quite impressive amounts of both the locally brewed beer as well as some other kind of liquor that Bedwyr had offered to his guests following the main course of the meal. He had been aware that Mr. Fell was not the tea totaller that one might mistake him for – Liam had at one occasion admired a collection of fine old wine bottles in Mr. Fell’s back room, and had been rewarded with a thirty-minute-long theoretical introduction into the field of elitist wine production, which he had endured with polite nodding and a clenched jaw. However, it was obvious that while Mr. Fell valued quality, he had no objections to quantity either. By now, he was drunk as hell, and thereby blending in with his surroundings just marvelously.

“Lesley”, Liam whispered, “I would like to try talk to him. Even if he does not recognize me – and even though he looks pretty wasted – he has helped me before, so... maybe he can help me again.”

Lesley nodded. “As soon as Bedwyr has thanked everyone for coming, which he will most likely do rather soon, some people will leave, but most will get up from the table and linger for a while to drink and talk some more. That will be your best chance to walk over and speak to him. Normally, you would need to greet a druid or be introduced to him in a specific way not to be considered impolite, but since he is rather an honorary than an actual member of the local guild, it will be alright.”

“Thank you”, Liam said, and restrained himself a few more minutes. It was a relief when Bedwyr finally got up from his chair and gave a concluding speech, during which he apparently thanked Liam again, as at one point people turned towards him and laughed friendly, exposing crooked rows black and yellow teeth. When people started to get up, Liam threw a glance at Lesley, who nodded. So he got up too, and forced himself to stay composed as he approached the other end of the table. Mr. Fell was standing there, beaker in his hand, slightly wobbling. _Just great_, Liam thought somberly as he took in his friend’s drunk state. Taking a deep breath, he gave it a bold try and addressed his old friend in 21st century English.

“Mr. Fell, it is me. Do you recognize me?”

Mr. Fell turned towards him, brows furrowed in confusion. That was a no, then. And it made Liam’s theory more probable. Mr. Fell said something in the dialect of the village, which of course Liam did not understand, so he resorted to the language which the yellow-eyed woman had generously taught him.

“Excuse me, Master… Arthfael, right? Do you know the language which I am speaking? I’m afraid I don’t know the local tongue.”

“Oh, yes, I can understand you just fine, dear boy! What’s your name? Oh, and what was that language you spoke before?”

Liam opened his mouth, but Mr. Fell spoke out again before he could say anything. “Oh dear, where are my manners! Wouldn’t you like to drink with me?”, he exclaimed, gesturing towards the bottles on the table.

Liam cleared his throat. “Uhm, Sir, no, thanks a lot. And I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I think that you already had a bit more than is good for you.”

Baffled, Mr. Fell shifted uncomfortably on the spot. “Oh, well”, he slurred, sounding embarrassed, “you are most definitely right, I should temper myself, not indulge in this sinful behavior. You see – it’s no excuse, really, and actually I should not bother you with this – I just had the most dreadful argument yesterday with an old friend of mine… or actually not a friend, more of an acquaintance, but a very good acquaintance… Or rather a very _bad_ acquaintance, indeed, yeah, that’s more like it...”

He wobbled again, and Liam instinctively reached out to steady the man-like being. Now Liam realized what Mr. Fell’s odd behavior reminded him of, and he came to a rather surprising diagnosis. He had seen a similar case once – a childhood friend, coming from a very conservative household, who had developed a crush on his teammate in the school’s soccer club, but did not understand his own feelings yet. Said friend could not put his feelings into words for lack of the necessary vocabulary, as nobody had ever taught him. At one occasion there had been a rough argument within the soccer club – something about their gaming strategy, Liam had never really cared – which left his friend on bad terms with his secret crush. Back then, that friend had been all riled up, irritable and whiny for days, driving Liam almost insane with annoyance.

He sighed heavily and took a step back, seeing that Mr. Fell had temporarily regained his balance. Just wonderful. Not only did this Mr. Fell not know him and was utterly wasted, on top of it he was lovesick and in denial about it. _This is gonna be fun_, Liam thought gloomily, and cleared his throat in an attempt to start over again.

*******

“My name is Liam, and…”

Before Liam could extend his answer, two things happened. For once, a loud and growling thunder rolled over them, unannounced and unforeseen, like the sound of an explosion in the distance. People shrieked in surprise as a strong gust of wind followed right after – there had been a few clouds, but nobody had expected that a storm would come up still on this evening.

The second thing was that Mr. Fell dropped his beaker full of his beloved beverage, spilling it all on the stomped grass, and stopped dead right where he stood. His eyes were unfocused, looking at something far away or maybe at nothing at all.

People around him just assumed he had dropped it out of shock due to the loud sudden noise. Liam knew better. He could see that something had just happened to his old friend, and that it was Liam himself who had unintentionally caused it.

He felt Lesley’s presence behind him even without looking at her. “What happened?”, she asked, stepping forward beside him.

“He just… I don’t… I just said my name, and suddenly there was this thunder, and… he just zoned out.”

Lesley gasped. “His aura, it… it is being repressed by another entity! He is being possessed!”

“His aura?” He realized that Lesley had commented on this matter the second time this evening. “Auras are real? And you can see them?”

Lesley just gave an impatient nod. “That’s why I was chosen to be a priestess in the first place.”

“Ah... makes sense”, Liam responded sheepishly. Lesley ignored him, staring at Mr. Fell with wide eyes.

“But this other entity, it is… It is very much like him. It almost appears as if… But that cannot be…”

“I think it is exactly as it appears”, another voice said gravely from behind them. Lesley and Liam spun around, then stepped aside to make space for the druidess who had joined them.

“You… so you do speak Lesley’s – I mean our language after all?”, Liam exclaimed, almost yelping in surprise. The druidess gave him a stern look. “I can converse in a number of tongues, though I choose very carefully whether or not somebody is worth the effort before I do so.”

_Nice old lady_, Liam thought bitterly, but suppressed the urge to express his annoyance at her.

“So what is it then? You said he is being possessed? As in possessed by… a ghost? An evil spirit? Something like that?”

“Not quite”, Lesley said quietly, chewing on her lower lip. Her voice was almost drowned out by the howling wind and rustling leaves as the storm grew stronger. Bedwyr and his wife ran around frantically, collecting clattering dishes and plates from the table for fear they might be blown away any second.

“Normally”, the druidess answered in Lesley’s place, “people are indeed possessed by evil ghosts. Demons, as some call them. But in this case, the possessor is of another kind. Indeed, it seems to be of the same nature as Master Arthfael himself.”

So that confirmed Liam’s theory on Mr. Fell not being human, or at least not ordinary human. Still, there were so many open questions that they made his stomach twist.

The druidess was unbothered by his puzzled state. “In fact”, she continued, her raspy voice getting even lower, revealing that she was under tension too, “it looks as if Master Arthfael is being possessed by…”

“Liam!”, Mr. Fell suddenly exclaimed, grabbing the stunned young man by his shoulders, “Oh dear Heavens, I am so glad that I found you!”

It took Liam an moment to realize that Mr. Fell was talking modern English now – even though just a few minutes ago he had not understood a word of it.

“Mr. Fell? Is it really you?”, Liam stumbled, heart racing in his chest. It felt so good to hear someone speak in his native language again that his knees threatened to buckle.

“Yes, yes, my dear boy, it really is me as you know me – but we don’t have much time! The amulet that brought you here, do you still have it with you?”

“Oh… yes, yes, of course!” Liam’s fingers trembled as he reached under Bedwyr’s robe and into his pocket, pulling the small object out after some clumsy fidgeting.

Mr. Fell took the amulet and studied if for a few seconds. “Alright.” He looked up and at the two women standing behind Liam, addressing them in Lesley’s language. “Lady Samaire, young Lady Lesley – I will need both of your help to bring this young man home. Please understand that this is a matter of utmost importance – it is very hard to explain in this short time, but unless we remove Liam from this time and place as soon as possible, the very fabric that constitutes this world could take severe damage. The repercussions could be disastrous, to say the least.”

Lesley gasped and clutched a hand in front of her mouth, even the elderly druidess starred with wide eyes as Mr. Fell gave them a series of instructions. When he had finished, the elderly druid stepped forward. “Master Arthfael, not only did you speak up for me in the past when people were concerned about a woman joining the order of druids, moreover, you have saved this village from harm on more than one occasion. I promise that I will do everything in my power to ensure that it happens as you say it must. And I assume that my new protegee and future successor“ – here, she looked at Lesley, who in return looked at her as if she was about to burst into tears of happiness – ”will do the same.”

“She will”, Lesley confirmed, voice thick with emotion. Liam felt himself smile at seeing her so joyful. She was where she was supposed to be now, he felt. And now that his time in this era was about to come to an end, he suddenly found that he was grateful for having been given the privilege of accompanying her on this journey. Or a part of her journey, at least.

When Mr. Fell had finished, he became still, and Lesley muttered that the spirit had left the man. The sky cleared up, though they clouds stayed dark and gloomy, as if threatening what might happen if the instructions would not be followed through. After a minute of confused silence, Mr. Fell stirred again. “Uh… could somebody explain me what just happened?”

“Nothing, Master Arthfael. You just had a bit too much to drink. Why don’t you go lie down for tonight? There is always room for you in our guest house, as you know”, the druidess offered politely.

“Oh, oh yes, I should indeed. Thank you very much, Lady Samaire!”

Liam had taken a few steps back, doing his best to remain inconspicuous and to not attract his old friend’s attention again. He watched as Mr. Fell unsteadily made his way towards the village square. _See you again in the future_, he thought solemnly, _and when we meet again, we should really have a __talk__ about health__ier__ ways to deal with relationship __trouble__._

*******

On a stormy Friday night, a man wearing shabby clothes made his way through rainy London. That by itself was not unusual, on the contrary. What was unusual, however, was that the man had just jumped out of a medallion.

In a sweet Victorian villa in Notting Hill, London, to be precise.

The house had been in the possession of a rather wealthy London family for a few generations. On that evening, only a young man – about Liam’s age – as well as his elderly grandmother had been present in the domicile. The grandmother had already gone to bed, leaving her young grandson to read by himself in the large living room. Raindrops were starting to clatter against the thin windows, creating a cozy atmosphere within the dimly lit room. That was, until the young man was startled by a loud _thump_ coming from the attic.

Perplexed, the young man got up and after gathering himself, immediately went to check on his grandmother. She was still vastly asleep, lying in her canopy bed, and he gently closed the door again. After a moment of thought, he made his way upstairs to investigate as to what had caused that sound. Taking a deep breath, the man pulled on the rope to bring down the attic staircase and climbed up.

Already before he had turned on the lamp, he found the attic flooded in light. He saw a very filthy man of his own age stand there, right amid crammed shelves and wooden boxes, and there were beams of light swirling around him. The young heir gasped, and so did the visitor. Their glances met. Then, the strange light dissipated, leaving the attic and the two men in darkness.

“Uh…”, the house heir said, rather helplessly, “Just a moment, please.”

He felt for the switch, and found it a moment later. Both men blinked against the electric light, even though it seemed dull compared to the spectacle they had witnessed only seconds before.

“This… uh…”, the heir made a vague gesture, trying to capture the entirety of this puzzling scenario, “This is quite unexpected.”

Liam looked at him, not quite knowing whether he should laugh or cry. “Sorry, I guess that must be already super weird for you, but… could you tell me which date it is? As in, including the year?”

The young house heir looked at him open-mouthed for a few seconds, then he remembered his manners and told him.

Liam noticed that tears rose to his eyes.

“Why… Uh… I am sorry, but could you explain to me, why you suddenly appear out of no-where in my family’s attic and… why you don’t know what day it is?”, the heir stammered, not quite knowing what to ask first, “I mean, you can’t really be a burglar or something, there is no way into this room – that one window is too small to climb in, even for you, and you cannot have come in via the ladder, since I was home all day and would have noticed you trespassing, so…”

The nhe saw what the visitor held in his hand, and his mouth fell open once more. “Ah… so it really is…”

“What really is what?”, Liam asked, now just as puzzled as the house heir.

“That piece of jewelry”, the young man specified, pointing at Liam’s hand.

_Jewelry?_, Liam wondered, and only then realized that he was holding the amulet – the very amulet within which he had been locked up and preserved for millennia. It looked different now than from what he remembered – the intricate pattern on its outside was gone, replaced by a smooth exterior, hiding what had apparently been a magic spell engraved in its shell. He gently touched the cover with a finger, feeling a series of small scratches on the shiny, mostly even surface. It hand gone through countless hands throughout all those years, had been passed on from owner to owner. The mere thought was mind-blowing, to say the least, and Liam stared at the medallion awkwardly for a long moment, finally being interrupted by the young heir’s voice.

“It has been in my family’s possession for a few generation, as far as I know”, the man said, hands twitching restlessly, “My grandmother sometimes wore it, just as a necklace, when she was younger. Then some day it was put up here, in one of those wooden boxes.”

He studied Liam’s face for a while before continuing. “So here’s the thing. My grandmother told me that when she was young, she had this friend. An occultist. And this occultist, she once saw her wearing that locket and told her that there was a spell on it – and it was _timed_, so it would run out and release whatever it contained within the next few decades or so.” He took a deep breath. “Of course my grandmother regarded that as nonsense, but she liked to tell us all kinds of spooky stories, for fun. One night my sisters and I were playing, exploring all those old things stored up here in this attic, and found the amulet. When we showed it to Granny, she told us this story. So, we children had all those ideas back then about what might actually be inside this locket. It bothered us that we could _never_ get it open. We thought it might contain a monster or a ghost or… Well, we used to have our imagination run wild as kids, you see.”

“I see”, Liam answered weakly.

“So… I am inclined to think you…” He noticed that Liam was wobbling on his feet.

“Uhm, are you alright?”

“Me? Yeah, yes, sure. Just a lot to take in. Being sucked into a medallion in a Celtic village and merrily hopping out here again.”

Liam shivered, remembering the instructions which Mr. Fell had given to Lesley and Samaire while possessing his own younger self.

“_I will now recite an incantation, which you need to remember carefully and speak on the night of the next full moon – which will be tomorrow night – while holding the amulet over a fireplace. Please make sure you correctly pronounce each single syllable – the incantation is in an old magic language you are not familiar with, so a slip of your tongue could easily destroy its grammar and therefore, its potency. The spell will trap young Liam inside the amulet – soul and body – and keep him in a hibernating state. Further, it will protect the amulet as well as Liam himself from decay for an indefinite time. For now, you must find a family that is worthy to safeguard the amulet, to protect it and pass it on from generation to generation. Don’t tell them about the amulet’s true content, just let them know it is a holy object and will bring them good fortune if kept safe. Make sure that they are aware that if they don’t have offspring themselves, they must in turn find someone else to pass it on to. People tend to be good at these things – following rules and safeguarding objects they think are important, without ever really knowing why. And those who own it will indeed be blessed, that is the third part of my spell. Since there is an impressive amount of energy stored in the object itself, it can continuously draw energy from that source – and almost deplete itself, just in time, so that from that moment on it can no longer do any harm.”_

“_The order of druids would happily take care of safeguarding the object, Master Arthfael. Then there would be no need to put this duty upon anyone else who does not know of the object’s content.”_

“_I know you would do that, dear Lady Samaire – but the amulet is best kept away from those who study magic or any related art. Though unlikely, it would be possible that a priestess like yourself would someday try to abuse its power. No. It has to be handed over to good, yet regular people who have no interest in harnessing occult forces. That is why you will also have to keep the incantation which I am about to recite to you a secret from everyone else. Moreover, it will hide the runes written on the outer shell of the amulet to further obscure its true power.”_

Liam had listened as Lady Samaire discussed the matter with Lesley and suggested Bedwyr’s family, raising no objections. The very boy he had saved from the river would one day receive it from his parents, as a wordless parting gift from the priestess’ brother whom he never saw again. And he would later pass it on, letting it swim further down the stream of time. Liam had felt as if matters were taken out of his hands now, and he was just a small figurine in a game played by an anonymous, almighty gaming addict – quite possibly a maniac.

His goodbye from Lesley had been a heartfelt one. Knowing that she would be long gone by the time he re-emerged from inside the amulet, he could only console himself by hoping that she could have a fulfilling life now. What became out of it would be in her own hands, not dictated upon her by others.

The house heir’s eyes widened. “So you really were… But how long? Celtic? But you speak modern English, so how… ?”

“I am originally from here”, Liam clarified, “then _this_ here made me travel back in time, and then it helped me travel forward in time again – though not directly. For the trip back, I mean forward, I had to go the long way.”

He took another deep breath, trying to compose himself. He let the amulet dangle from his hand. “As I see it, this legally belongs to you, respectively your family, but I need it for one final thing. Would you mind if I borrow it? I promise, I will bring it back – and then I can tell you the whole story, if you like, though it’s quite possible you won’t believe it.”

“I would very much like to hear your story”, the young heir said seriously, “And of course you can take it with you. In fact, I believe it belongs to you rather than to us now.”

Liam smiled. “Thanks, mate.”

Then the young house heir showed him the way downstairs and lead him to the door. So there Liam was again, on the streets of London.

After roaming the streets for a bit, he managed to regain his sense of orientation, and set off in the direction he hoped to find the antiquity store.

*******

A human, a demon and an angel stood in an antiquity store while a storm was tormenting the city with rain, hail and thunder.

“This is not an ordinary storm, not at all”, Aziraphale muttered, fretting and wringing his hands, “It is a manifestation of something that has to be done. This is the world reacting to an open end that needs to be closed – I cannot explain why, but I am almost certain that the events of this evening are the cause of it. I just can’t see how it would all be connected...”

“An open loop as in a time loop? Is that what you are saying, angel?”

“That is what I believe, yes. If only we could ask…”

“_Liam!_”, Abigail exclaimed, shrieking in excitement.

Mr. Fell turned around, surprised. “Well yes, indeed.” Only then he realized that Abigail was looking out through the shop window into the dark. Before he could ask what was going on, all of a sudden she ran towards the door and out into the rain.

“Well, looks like we could ask him”, Crowley commented, trying to sound nonchalant while being just as stunned as his angel.

Outside the shop under the pouring rain stood a young man, drenched and dirty, yet in the warmest and softest embrace he had experienced in his whole life.

*******

When the young human couple entered the bookshop, the supernatural couple awaited them with a mixture of curiosity and nervousness.

“My dear boy, it is so good to see you again”, Mr. Fell greeted Liam warmly, and Liam responded with a wide grin (though that one was only partly visible from underneath his beard). “It is good to see you again too, Mr. Fell – though from my perspective, I have just seen you a moment before.”

“What?”, came a cry of surprise from the corner, “If there is anyone you should have met, then it would have to be me, I believe!”

Liam spun around to see a man clad in black, skinny clothes and red hair lurking between two shelves. He looked at the man’s eyes and gasped. “You!”, he exclaimed, puzzled, “But you… weren’t you a… ?”

“That’s a detail”, the snake-eyed man/woman/being responded. Liam starred at him for a moment longer. “Thousands of years and you still haven’t learned to blink, I see”, he then remarked, not quite knowing what else to say, and the demon smiled diabolically.

Mr. Fell cleared his throat. “Uh, Liam, I think I have not yet acquainted you with my life partner, Anthony J. Crowley.”1

Liam’s mouth fell open. “Hang on, so then _he_ is the person that you were so… Oh, never mind. We can talk about that another time”, he interrupted himself upon seeing his friend’s genuinely puzzled look.

After thinking for a moment, Mr. Fell stepped forward. “Liam, do you have the amulet with you?”

“Oh yes, yes! Of course!”

Liam reached into his pocket and pulled the item out. Abigail stepped back uncomfortably upon seeing it again, for fear it might swallow someone whole again. Liam noticed.

“Don’t worry, my darling”, he said gently, pulling her towards himself, “I won’t disappear again. This thing here does not have enough battery left to catapult me through time and space a second time. Though it should have just a sufficient amount stored to help my friend here to pull off an equally impressive stunt.” He looked at Mr. Fell, who in turn looked at his husband.2

And then Liam told them a story that made them all question their own sanity.

_Footnotes:_

1 “What’s the _J_ for?”, Abigail asked quietly. Crowley ignored her.

2 To silently calm the demon down and non-verbally reassure him that everything would be fine, that was, as Liam’s ambiguous announcement had immediately put his partner on alert.


	9. The Circle gets Closed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Liam's recount, Crowley and Aziraphale know exactly what needs to be done now (or at least they hope so).  
The storm subsides. Aziraphale invites everyone to have lunch in the near future.  
Now, that the unwritten future lies ahead of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, the final chapter.  
It has been a long journey - thank you to those who were with me all along, and thank you just as much to those who will read it in the future and make it this far!  
Any feedback and suggestions for improvement are very welcome and appreciated.
> 
> Stay safe!

In 807, the demon Crowley passed a Welsh village. There was quite an impressive turmoil going on – if someone from below would have come up to check on him right now, Crowley would proudly have claimed that he had started the riot. Not that anybody could have disproved it.

He watched the heated mob and their argument from some save distance, observing if there was any good time to intervene. People annoying people was desirable from his perspective, naturally. People slaughtering people? He liked to avoid that, if possible.

Then suddenly, a young man stepped up on a trunk, and started speaking to everyone. He was clearly nervous and not used to talking to a crowd, but he had gathered his courage in a desperate last-minute attempt to stop the two present clans from attacking each other. Crowley observed, silently wondering if he should use a small demonic miracle to convince the villagers to listen to this guy. He would most likely be able to justify that, if asked about it. Convincing a crowd to listen to some random individual lunatic had turned to be a good tool for the evil, after all. But before Crowley had done anything at all, another type of miracle happened. An elderly man in the crowd started to clap. Then another one. And another. And suddenly they all cheered for the young man. A while later, the crowd dispersed peacefully. Nobody in the village got hurt on that night.

Crowley continued his way, feeling secretly relieved. He would soon forget about the incident he had witnessed for the longest time, including about the young man who had stepped up on that trunk. He had been wearing plain clothes, but a smooth, golden piece of jewelry around his neck.

*******

In 1048, Aziraphale mingled with the crowd in a small, yet merry wedding celebration held in a beautiful garden beside a small castle. He was enjoying himself, perhaps a bit too much, and could not help throwing a blessing or miracle here and there. He might be scolded for that again, but he was in a good mood and would not let the thought of Gabriel spoil that. Not this time.

He wandered around, chatting with people, giving them advice or simply offering to listen to them. He had learned long ago that often, that was enough. It was pleasant to bring joy to people, and joy could come in so many ways.

He was in such a dreamy state that he did not realize what was going on until it was too late.

Of course, Aziraphale had felt earthquakes before. Many, many times before. Yet this one took him by surprise. People screamed in shock as the ground shook beneath their feet. And then, with a loud crash, the roof of the small castle adjoining the garden collapsed.

_Dear Heavens_, Aziraphale thought, _hopefully nobody was in there still_. The earthquake subsided, but the chaos lingered. People were crying, shaking, sobbing. Then somebody screamed: “The bride’s younger sister! She must be in there!”

Aziraphale immediately felt disappointed with himself. Had he realized this before, he would have quickly cast a minor miracle on the girl to keep her from harm. If she was heavily injured now, the miracle to save her would be rather cost-intensive – perhaps more than he could offer right now. He took a deep breath to steady himself. This was not an assignment and he knew he should not intervene too much, but helping those in need was an angelic duty, after all. He approached the collapsed building and waved at some men in his proximity to join him. Together, they removed several large piece of debris – and then they found the young woman. She had climbed underneath a large table just in time, which had protected her from falling pieces. The bride was overwhelmingly relieved and hugged her sister tightly, sobbing without pause. Aziraphale felt relieved too. It felt suspiciously miraculous that the woman had survived against all odds, and he silently wondered if he could have used a miracle without realizing it. However, he disregarded that idea almost immediately. It was consoling to him that such things could happen even without an angel intervening. He smiled fondly at the young woman as she was being cradled by her older sister, and if his glance got caught on the small golden amulet she was wearing around her neck for a moment, that certainly was nothing more than coincidence.

*******

In 1601, two men – one clad in bright, pompous clothes, the other smartly dressed in black, yet wearing a rather ridiculous goatee – emerged from a theater and made their way along the town’s promenade. “Boring”, Crowley muttered, reaching up to re-adjust his tiny sunglasses. “What was that, dear boy?”, Aziraphale inquired. “Oh, nothing, angel, nothing”, the demon answered, making a show out of hiding his annoyance while it was written all over his face.

“Well, I found it quite entertaining”, Aziraphale replied, sounding clearly offended. They passed by a small castle, and suddenly they heard a scream. Something _fell_ off the front tower – and landed right in Crowley’s arms. No human could have reacted that fast, let alone caught the boy so effortlessly without going down themselves – yet the demon could, and he had been just at the right spot to do so.

Aziraphale gasped as he saw Crowley holding the young boy. “Oh, my dear…”

He never got to finish that sentence, as a middle-aged man ran towards them in the dark. “My son! Oh god, my son!” Then he took in the scene. “Oh kind Sir, thank you _so_ much! I told him so often not to climb the tower but he never listened – and he has never fallen until this day, and if it had not been for you…”

“_Yessssss_, I get the point”, the demon half-said, half-hissed1, causing the man to flinch. “Now take the brat and teach him some manners, will you?”

The man did and went on his way. Aziraphale kept starring at Crowley admiringly.

“What?”, Crowley snapped.

“Oh, nothing.” Then Aziraphale frowned as something else came to his mind. “Did you notice the man was wearing something around his neck?”

“Hm? Oh yeah, small shiny golden thing. Why?”

“I feel as if I have seen it before – perhaps more than once – but I can’t quite place it.”

Crowley stopped dead. “You know what’s crazy”, he said slowly, “The same holds for me.”

They exchanged a puzzled look. When they found they both had no clue, they simply dropped the matter and continued their way to a local tavern.

*******

In the first half of the 21st century, Aziraphale re-emerged from his inter-dimensional séance. He felt rather dizzy, and everything around him looked blurred. There was a voice talking to him, and that voice sounded nice compared to the ringing in his ears, or maybe that voice just sounded nice because it belonged to the special someone in his life.

“Angel”, Crowley said again, as Aziraphale’s senses started to clear up, “can you hear me?”

Slowly, Aziraphale sat up and took in his surroundings, piecing together what he saw and what he remembered. He was half sitting, half lying on the futon in the back office office of Mrs. Grey’s antiquity shop. There was Crowley’s hand on his arm. The demon was kneeling in front of the futon, and the two humans were behind him, watching the pair anxiously.

“Aziraphale, are you alright?”, Crowley inquired, sounding tense like a pulled string.

“I believe so”, the angel answered, though he immediately felt dazed again as he now fully sat up. Crowley was clearly not convinced, his upper lip twitching as if he wanted to expose his fangs to an invisible threat.

Aziraphale caught Liam’s questioning glance. “It went all quite as you described it”, he said, “I saw you and my dear old friend Lady Samaire, as well as young Lesley. I explained the situation to them and made the priestesses memorize the Enochian spell.”

Several pieces of paper were lying on a couch table beside the futon, with a carefully crafted, intricate incantation written out it in Crowley’s clear handwriting. They had even needed to look up a few rarely used runes to devise the spell, but luckily, Aziraphale had thought of bringing some books that came in handy. His bag was standing right beside the table.

The angel held up his right hand in which he was still holding the small, golden amulet. It no longer bared the artistically interwoven runes all over its exterior, but was smooth except for a few scratches. Erasing the pattern had been part of the spell, because Aziraphale and Crowley _knew_ that it would have to be part of the spell. Just as they knew all the rest from Liam’s recount and knew they would have to make it happen just as he told them it did.

Naturally, creating an inter-dimensional rift in the space-time-continuum was not an easy thing to do for any angel or demon. God’s creation was not laid out to give that option. However, thanks to the precise drawing of the original amulet’s design that Crowley had made based on the information extracted from Abigail’s memory, they were able to re-use much of the work which the anonymous creator of the amulet had done. They had to adapt the pattern quite a bit, as it was meant to not simply swallow the angel whole like the first rift had swallowed Liam. Instead, it needed to relocate only his soul, then snap it back to here and now after a short amount of time. After some fidgeting, researching and debating2, the occult-ethereal pair had crafted the the magic that would fulfill all of these traveling requirements.

And exactly as it should be, the mysterious energy source stored within the amulet had been just enough to do the trick. Now it was fully depleted, all the magic was gone, and there was nothing left except a golden locket on a string.

To double-check, Aziraphale snapped the medallion open. It no longer resisted.

“It is empty inside”, Aziraphale stated, “and all of its capacities are gone. Also, I can feel that the storm outside has subsided. What remains is nothing but ordinary London rain – there no longer is a threat to the world.” He took a deep breath. “It is done.”

Liam was at a loss of words. He hesitated, but then took the amulet from Aziraphale’s hand. Crowley observed the exchange silently, as did Abigail.

All four of them were quiet for a few minutes.

“But there is still so much I don’t understand”, Abigail finally burst out, “Who made the amulet? How did it come to be here in this shop? Why did the locket open for us, but nobody else? Why was I so attracted to it, while no customer ever paid attention? Why did it send Liam through time? How did this_ time loop_ come into existence in the first place? How are these wicked things created?”

“They are not created”, Crowley said slowly, “they just are. As to why…”

He exchanged a glance with the angel, who shrugged. “The ways of God are mysterious”, the angel replied automatically.

The demon rolled his eyes.

Neither of the two humans knew how to respond to that.

“Well, this certainly has been an exciting night”, Aziraphale said, sounding tired, “I suggest we all get home and rest…”

“… and take a shower…”, Crowley added, not directly looking at Liam but clearly referring to him.3

“… and then we can talk about this and perhaps a few more pleasant things next week Sunday, when the two of you come to our place for lunch”, the angel finished his sentence, ignoring Crowley’s rudeness. The two humans were surprised, and so was the demon, yet they all agreed to this proposal.

Liam was looking at the amulet again. “I am still not decided on whether I should keep this or bring it back to its owner”, he admitted, “after all, I still owe him an explanation.”

“You do not have to make this decision tonight”, the angel reminded him friendly, “Get some rest, take enough time to reflect and think about all that happened. After all, you have made an unique experience that – to the best of my knowledge – no other human has ever made. You have lived in a different epoch of history. Actually, when you are ready – perhaps next week, perhaps another time – I would love to hear more about it all.”

Liam smiled at him. “You are right as usual, Mr. Fell. I am honestly curious to see if anything I have learned in these few months turns out to be transferable to my life. I know quite some practical skills – I am practically a survival expert. Who knows, I might become a linguist – now that I am fluent at a language that nobody else has spoken in almost two and a half millennia.“ He sounded to be joking, but truth was, there was no way to tell what the future held.

The loop was closed, and his life lay in front of him like a blank sheet of paper.

*******

Back at the book shop, both the angel and the demon let themselves drop heavily on the cozy sofa in the back room.

“Exciting night”, Aziraphale said and gave a long sigh, rubbing his face with one hand.

“Mhm.”

“We should probably set out to investigate the origin of this amulet. The sheer power harboring inside it was quite frightening. Not to speak of this very intricate time-traveling spell.”

“Not tonight. Plus, I have a vague idea as to _who_ might have been at least remotely involved in its making.”

They fell silent for a view minutes, and Aziraphale already thought Crowley might have fallen asleep. Then the demon started talking again, quietly.

“Zira?”

“Yes?”

“You’re sure you are alright?”, Crowley asked, peering at him through half-closed eyes.

“Yes, I am just very exhausted – and you?”, Aziraphale responded.

“Same. But I did not jump through a rift in time.”

“No, but you got zapped by a demon trap.”

“Oh yeah, that. Almost forgot about it.”

After another moment of silence, Crowley added: “And I’m a bit jealous, you know.”

“Jealous? About what?”

“About you _jumping through bloody time_ of course!” The demon partly sat up, propping himself up on his forearms. “And _possessing_ _yourself_! I mean, I’m the demon among the two of us – others should think I am the one to have experience with that business. But you are on the track of becoming a world-class expert!”

Aziraphale pouted. “Well, I could do very well without any additional experience, ever.” Then he frowned. “But possessing my younger self was… odd. Luckily in this case, my former self was not in his best state, so it was not too hard to overwhelm him, but… it was still a very strange feeling. Being _there_ again – before Armageddon. Before the Arrangement, even. Before…” He raised his hand to a wide open gesture, and Crowley knew all to well what the angel tried to say.

“Well, I will make sure you will never have to go back _there_”, he promised, shifting closer to his partner.

_Footnotes:_

1 One may speculate on whether this was from anger or from embarrassment.

2 There may or may not have been some arguing.

3 In fact, Crowley had already silently checked the young man for any pathogens or parasites he might have caught or brought with him, and had secretly disposed of them all. He had hoped the angel would not notice him being soft again. Of course, the angel was well aware.


End file.
